Stephanie Land, author of the best-selling memoir “Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive” will be a featured speaker at AHF Live: The Affordable Housing Developers Summit in Chicago in November.
Land’s compelling story of being a single mom working as a housecleaner and navigating the poverty trap was the inspiration of Netflix’s popular series “Maid.”
In her second book “Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education,” Land picks up where “Maid” left off as she faced the new challenges of being a poor college student and single parent.
In her books, Land captures the tightrope that many families must walk each day to survive. She’ll share her story at AHF Live.
Why did you write “Maid,” and what do you want people to learn from the book?
I’m a writer, and it was a dream to publish a book that I wrote. The subject matter was based on an essay that went extremely viral about cleaning houses. I honestly didn’t think writing about cleaning houses was all that interesting, but that was the book that I was contracted to write. When I sat down to write the book, the thing that I kept in mind was writing a book where other single moms might feel seen and recognized. Not only did I want to write a love letter to my daughter, but I wanted people to know that single parents work extremely hard and they love their kids very much. I wanted to offer a story that might be authentic to another single parent’s experience.
What is the question you get most often from people who’ve read your book or seen the series?
The series crowd is pretty different from people who have read the book. The people who have read the book often ask “Have you heard from anyone you wrote about—cleaning clients or my family?”
Aside from what’s it like to have your life turned into a Netflix series, people who’ve seen the series want to know how some of the characters are doing. The mom character was fictional. Regina and Danielle were both fictional characters, so I have to tell them they are fictional.
How important was affordable and healthy housing in your journey?
It was monumental. I credit my tiny apartment in low-income housing [in Missoula, Montana] to my lucky break in being a writer. It was a low enough amount of rent that I knew that I could afford. It was $423 a month … It also was secure in that it had an entry code and double doors. It had more security than any other place that I had lived. It offered me peace of mind. The stress that I felt of being housing insecure is terrifying. As a parent, you want your child to have a safe space as their own where they can grow and develop in. Not having that or being afraid of losing that is terrifying.
What are some systemic changes that can be made to help people out of poverty?
Wages need to reflect living expenses. People need to get paid more for the jobs they are doing. Low-income people do the work that makes all other work possible. We depend on that work to not only make our lives easier, but I always talk about how we wouldn’t be able to go anywhere if there weren’t people cleaning up constantly after us.
I also think we need to stop asking for people to deserve the low amount of help we are offering. It’s ridiculous that poor people have to prove they are working 20 hours a week to get a small amount of money for food or health care or child care assistance.
What’s next for you? Are you working on a new book?
I’m working on a book called “The Privilege to Feel.” It’s a memoir and essays that span a 30-year period from when I was about 16 to right now. It’s looking back on a lot of things that happened to me in my early 20s that set me up for not necessarily failure but set me up for not having any kind of financial safety net when I found myself with only $200 in my pocket and nothing to turn to. There’s a lot of privilege in having space and time to [reflect on] stuff that happened to us … It’s a book about going back and looking at events. There was a line that kind of fell out of me in “Class” that said “I didn’t have the privilege to feel,” and I couldn’t stop thinking about that. I’m still working on it. I don’t know the publication date.
AHF Live is Nov. 17-19 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. See the agenda and learn more here. Attendance is reserved exclusively for owners and developers of affordable housing, plus state and local housing finance agency representatives and nonprofit organizations focused on affordable housing.