Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

While this book sheds light on a system that discriminates against those who can't get government assistance, it was a bit of a slog listening to 8 families living in poverty in Milwaukee. While I like narrative nonfiction and the research was extensive, I thought the stories got repetitive and confusing as the author liked interweaving their stories switching from one to the other in the middle of chapters. The audio book was not a good choice for me.

The vicious cycle of drugs, bad laws, slumlords, discrimination, health issues, and a host of problems bombards the listener. Only one of the eight individuals followed by the author breaks out of poverty and finds a stable job, but he had a professional job before succumbing to drugs; I thought his chance of finding stability was higher than the others. The other families and individuals seemed to have more obstacles to overcome from violent upbringings, low-wage jobs that weren't stable, physical disabilities, and mental issues. All of the families had multiple evictions and the majority tossed out of their homes were women and children.

A common stereotype is that people in poverty have only themselves to blame: they spend too much money, they are uneducated, they lack skills or intelligence to break out of the cycle, etc. Matthew Desmond hypothesizes that the problem with poverty is that it is profitable. The owner of a trailer park, that was barely habitable for tenants, makes $400,000 a year in profits. Another landlord drives her sports car and travels to Jamaica making a good profit on her tenants. Desmond shows the injustice of a system that denies people the right to live in a house and the social costs to communities. He argues that it is destructive and more costly to society in the long run than if a home and a stable community is established for those in need. He is not opinionated but lets the facts speak for themselves. This book reminds me of Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo who looks at those who profit from the slums of India.

This book is better read than listened too. The abundance of details can derail the casual listener. I kept shoving the earbuds deeper into my head so I could drown out the usual background gym noise. But some things stand out. While black men are ending up in jail as revealed in The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, this book shows how black women are being evicted at extremely high rates. One out of five black women is evicted, as opposed to one in twelve white women. Desmond shows time and again how the main thing holding poor people back is rent. He also shows how government funding programs meant to help the poor end up in the pockets of the landlord. At the end, he argues for more public housing vouchers as one way to address the issue. This is an important dialogue and while it made for dense (and sometimes confusing) listening, it was worth the effort.

5 Smileys