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

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • One of the most acclaimed books of our time, this modern classic “has set a new standard for reporting on poverty” (Barbara Ehrenreich, The New York Times Book Review).In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur “Genius” Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Hailed as “wrenching and revelatory” (The Nation), “vivid and unsettling” (New York Review of Books), Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America’s most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY President Barack Obama • The New York Times Book Review • The Boston Globe • The Washington Post • NPR • Entertainment Weekly • The New Yorker • Bloomberg • Esquire • BuzzFeed • Fortune • San Francisco Chronicle • Milwaukee Journal Sentinel • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Politico • The Week • Chicago Public Library • BookPage • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly • Booklist • Shelf AwarenessWINNER OF: The National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction • The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction • The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism • The PEN/New England Award • The Chicago Tribune Heartland PrizeFINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE AND THE KIRKUS PRIZE“Evicted stands among the very best of the social justice books.”—Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth “Gripping and moving—tragic, too.”—Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones“Evicted is that rare work that has something genuinely new to say about poverty.”—San Francisco Chronicle

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This review is being done at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, when millions of American households are facing possible evictions in the near future. I live in a city where this is a very real possibility, and where I am involved as a community activist to try my best to keep any future evictions to a minimum.So, with evictions on my mind, I found this book, thinking that it might be a good overview of the subject, and, in general, have some historic perspectives and data, give some examples of specific evictions, and on and on in this vein. That is not how the book goes. But that does not mean that I did not appreciate the book, for my purposes, in the end. I did and do. I found the book to be a compelling read.Most of the book takes place between May 2008 and December 2009. And the author points out that most poor households pay up to 50% or more for their rent. He also tells us that landlords are the ones that decide who lives where, racially, financially, socially.But, in fact, the first 300 pages of the book pretty much only involve the details of the lives of eight tenant households in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. All of them are very familiar with evictions. Most will face them, over and over again.In many ways, the eight tenant households featured in the book are their own worst enemies. These are not the typical working-class households, who, because of periodic hard times, find themselves behind on rent. No, most of these folks have problems with drugs, mental illness, and all kinds of issues. They are, for the most part, adults who are going nowhere in life, mainly due to no fault but their own.Weaved into all this are details of a landlord couple, who are very good at what they do, are making a ton of money doing it, and love the business they are in. And along the way, there are dozens of gotchas in the book, which, in some ways, is written as a mystery novel that emits clues to its outcome, as it goes.The author devoted several years of his life to the subject of evictions and writing the book. In kind of a Barbara Ehrenreich thing (“Nickel and Dimed”), he actually lived in the trailer park, named the College Home Mobile Park, for several months, where much of the action takes place. He describes the area as “the part of Milwaukee where poor white folks lived.” Milwaukee at that time was on the list of one of the most segregated cities in the U.S.He drove some of the renters around the city, looking for new apartments to rent, as they lacked cars or other vehicles. He got to know them, and they came to trust him. Actually, they, for the most part, were so up to their ears in drama and personal issues that they did not have any time to wish him harm or really figure him out. They knew he was writing a book, and that they were the subjects. They knew that he came from another world. They also had no time to try to figure out inequality. They only knew it for a fact.Also in the mix of the first 300 pages is the owner of the trailer park. He, like the landlord couple featured, is making a ton of money, and his relationships with his tenants is of interest. They know that he is rich, off their backs, but they seem to wish him no ill will. They respect him for who he is and what he has to do. The owner prides himself on being able to make good money off his tenants, in one of the city’s poorest trailer park. Somewhat frequently, tenants would leave their trailers behind, as they left, one way or the other. The owner would then reclaim them, as “abandoned property,” and be free to rent them to others, which he did.This owner found himself, as a result of his business, in the top one percent of earner households, knowing that most of his tenants were in the bottom ten percent. He earned roughly $500,000 after all expenses.Looking back through the book, I can remember the various tenants that have been introduced. Most live in the trailer park, but not all. Some know each other, but not all know each other. Most have kids, which makes the stress of keeping a roof over one’s head more stressful. Most with kids fear losing their kids to Protective Services.There are several evictions detailed. On the day of the event, the Sheriff would arrive with a gun, as the moving guys pulled up, this all being done by court order. If the tenant was present, the tenant would be given a choice: truck or curb. Truck meant taking the furniture and other goods to a storage place, where the tenant would have to pay monthly for storage, then a good hunk of money to get the stuff out of storage. Per the author, about 70% of those having items sent to storage never get it back. They are not allowed to take some things out, unless they are fully paid up on the storage unit.At the eviction site, the tenant has he choices of what to have removed and what to be sent to storage, or what is to be left behind. The landlord, then, has the choice of removing or retaining the remaining items. Many times, the tenants would already have left the unit, and would not be there when the eviction was in progress. What they left behind would be salvaged by the landlord or the moving company, or just sent to the dump. No questions asked.One story told was that of a man who asked the movers to give him a last minute inside his house. Once inside, he shot himself to death.I told you there were gotchas.The moving guys could do several moves per day. They could clean out a place within an hour. Again, they would commonly not be on the hook to take everything. The landlord would be involved in those decisions, because, in many cases, she would have already the unit rented to another group. One of the rules of the trade, per one of the moving guys, was to never open the refrigerator. You do not want to know what might be inside, or how it smelled.Many times, after the eviction, the tenants had only a shelter to go to. There, they would try to get themselves together and to start the process of finding their next home. Sometimes, tenants would meet other tenants there in the shelter and decide to combine incomes in their search for a new place to rent.At that time, in Milwaukee, there was a dwindling supply of very low-cost rentals, so tenants might have to make up to 100 calls and look at dozens of units before finding their next home. Landlords always asked about prior evictions, but sometimes chose to ignore these. Sometimes the tenants just plain got lucky. But, most of the time, the group featured in the book would find a way to face eviction again.There are also many stories about how tenants needing money would lean on friends or family. But they could not always go after the same persons. And, at times, they decided they would rather be evicted that beg for money, again. In one case, a woman decided to be evicted, rather than sell her jewelry, even though she knew that would raise enough money to avoid eviction. And then there were always the stalling techniques, like that money was coming soon to enable the tenant to pay the rent, even when that was not true.There is also the story of how neighbors might bring lawn chairs out to witness the eviction, to not miss the details of the event. And after an eviction at the trailer park, it was common for other tenants to go to the then-vacant unit to scavenge what was left.To the credit of the landlord couple in the book, they had no interest, for the most part, in evicting anyone. They would come for their rent, in person, so they got to know their tenants well. They would accept partial payments, at times, hear the hardship stories, but remain firm, like a parent to a child, in warning the tenants of their fate, if they screwed up or got too far behind in rent.Evictions commonly resulted following police calls and/or incidents with other tenants. Many of the rental sites had multiple units. If one tenant caused disturbances with another, one had to go. If there were too many police calls, or if city inspectors found the unit to be uninhabitable, due to conditions caused by the tenants, they probably had to go.At the same time, the landlords in the story had their flaws. They were not always quick to respond to complaints, a common one being of water not draining. In some cases, this was due to old pipes; in other cases, the plumber would blame the stoppage on grease or other food debris being poured down a sink. Sometimes there would be no hot water. But the landlord couple had money, and they frequently took trips, like to Jamaica. They would be out of town. They also liked to gamble, to spend money. Like I said above, they were good at what they did. They liked to think that they had the right to enjoy the profits.In some cases, it was disclosed that the landlord would move ahead with an eviction, knowing that she may be on the brink of selling the property, and wanting the current tenants out, before she sold. One property had a huge fire. The landlord simply used the fire-insurance money to buy another place.Landlords hate code violations and city inspectors. They cost landlords money. And tenants know that they risk an eviction if they call for inspections.This landlord couple prided themselves on buying rental property that would yield a positive cash flow from the start. In one case, they actually sold a property, at an inflated price, to a tenant, who was under a first-time-buyers’ program. When the new owner defaulted, the landlords bought the place back, at a nice discount.In the process of an eviction, there is, of course, a court proceeding. In most cases, the tenants do not show up, so the landlord wins by default. And there are other ways to get tenants out, like paying them to leave, or taking off the front door, or sending some goons over to threaten them, if they do not leave on their own.The name of the evil, successful landlord, who is Black, is Sherrena, which made me think of the evil Cruella De Vil of Disney fame. She sees evictions as a regular part of her business. Her story reveals that she bought her first rental in 1999, when prices were low, refinanced it some years later, to have a down payment for the next rental. Four years later, she owned 46 units. She found the banks more than willing to lend her to buy more and more But, she was always ready to tenants who were having trouble paying their rents that she had “mortgages to pay.”She and her husband called themselves “inter-city entrepreneurs.”The book points out that the profession of property managers has exploded over the past 40 years, and that the number of books on the subject was very limited before about 1975, after which it exploded, as well. In line with this, the book follows Sherrena to some property manager association meetings, where she is very active in giving advice to other landlords. She is seen as one of them who they can learn the latest tricks of the trade from.An interesting historical disclosure in the book is that it was common after WWII for landlords to turn away families with children and to evict when someone was pregnant. The Fair Housing Act in 1968 set many of the rules we now find common, but, per the book, it did not define families with children as a “protected” class.Also, after WWII, the federal government made homeownership for white families a priority, but not for Blacks. Landlords were quick to discover that profits could be made from rental units in slums. And even today, rental prices may not differ much between “good” areas and “bad” areas. Again, it is the landlords who decide who lives where, as well as what the prices for the rentals in each area should be.Near the end of the book, the author makes the points that “The home is the wellspring of personhood” and that “The home remains the primary basis for life.” He goes on to say that this is the basis of “civic life.” But low-income families, commonly, move much more frequently than those with higher incomes. This is disruptive in many ways, including that their kids change schools, frequently. One woman featured in the book, with her kids, moved, on average of about once per year for many, many years.Color is also involved. Black households are the most likely to be evicted, followed by Hispanics. And most who are evicted have children in the household. The author says that much of this is unnecessary. He points out that about 1/3 of renter households receive some form of government financial help; 2/3 do not. And, he says, legal assistance to the poor has been dwindling for at least a decade.He says, “In theory, you could solve the problem by expanding public housing, tax credits, homeowner initiatives, or developer incentives.” But, he says, each of these have their limitations. He is clearly for reasonable rent controls and reasonable returns on investments for landlords.The author says that he studies the subject of poverty as a graduate student. He was fascinated on poverty and its relationships to other things. This led him to focus on evictions. He soon moved into the trailer park, where he lived in a trailer without hot water. He could never get the landlord to fix the problem.He found himself to be a bit of a field worker, one who was constantly overanalyzing things. He found a surprising lack of data or research to help him with the subject of evictions. He found he was needing to come up with such data on his own, by living among those who he could extract the data. He assumes what he learned in Milwaukee is applicable to most other American cities.In summary, I think that this may prove to be an important book, historically and culturally. It tells many of us a great deal about a subject we do not know much about. I recommend that others read it, as well.

⭐This is easily one of the best ever books written on poverty, homelessness and its effects on poor people. This book is flawed only because; it is setting the foundation for another obamacare type response to homelessness. This book will be the rallying cry that will force taxpayers to provide homes for everyone with a pulse. Every dope addict, every crack hoe, every bottom feeder , every ex-convict, every booze hound a free home at taxpayer expense. Now lets say it happens. Everyone gets a free place to call home. Imagine bringing kids up in a ghetto, a neighborhood where pain, poverty, drug addiction and every imaginable vice is practiced. I can’t imagine a more hellish place to live than in an area where all the human refuse of the nation is consolidated in one mass festering heap of inhumanity.Do you really think that people with money will stand by while dopr addicts and other low life invade their neighborhoods. I have money enough to move away if my middle class neighborhood shows the first hint of going down hill. Socialogists and others can talk all they want about giving everyone a home but you can’t force people with different incomes and values to live together. People with money can always just up and move away. Money always finds a way to protect itself better next time after every setback.Also this book does a dis-service to the poor as well because it confirms so many horrible stereotypes. The illiterate uneducated un refined english of black folk the book strives so hard to shove down the readers throats. The white trash people in the trailer park stereotype was played up with equal zeal so the book is not racist.Much as I don’t want to admit it this book is abosolutely right and I can prove it in my own life. I’m black, I grew up in a stable home my family owned. My family owned its home paid off in full, had a car and my parents both had stable jobs. Growing up I never even saw an eviction so I did not even know what an eviction was. We always had lots of food in the house, the electricity, phone and water were never turned off because we did not pay. I was always clothed well. My shoes were always in good condition. Where I lived all black men went to work in the morning and it was fun to watch all the cars start up and zip off to work. I went to one school each in elementary, junior high and high school.My parents taught me how to budget money, save and discipline myself in all things. My parents also taught me not to do bad things like kick teachers, do drugs or even hang with people who abused drugs. I don’t feel the least bit sorry for the mom of the two bad boys who kicked the teacher and threw things out of the third floor windows of their nice apartment. She and her nasty kids got just what they deserved when tossed out like garbage. My parents taught me better than to kick teachers and toss things out of third floor windows. I wasn’t beyond hurting teachers but only if they violently laid hands on me first as one shop teacher tried to do. Also the stereotype where poor folk are buying lobster and steak on food stamps SNAP was put out there.I ride the #44 bus home from work at times because; being disabled I can’t drive yet I make good money. I’d see so many bad kids who act like they are animals monsters but never understood why till now. This book showed me how bad kids are created. When I was a kid the worse thing we saw was the occassional drunk adult thats it. I did not even know what pot smelled like till I rode the #22 bus home from high school. I did not know my first IV drug addict till I met a poor high school friends step father who was a needle freak. Much of what these kids see today in this book was totally foriegn to me growing up.Finally in my own life my parents gave me some rules for living on my own. FIRST ALWAYS PAY THE RENT FIRST… Why because you never want to be evicted. You can live without electricity, gas and phone. Building up after an eviction is extremely hard. Next pay the light then the phone bill. Pay gas & electricity next because you don’t want the pipes to freeze which could get you evicted. Finally pay the phone so you can try to get yourself out of the bad situation by calling people and having a way for help to find you.I lived on Section 8 for 14 years and I always paid my rent, gas, electricity and never got evicted. This book helps me understand why so many of my black friends tell me I took the white path to success. I have never been arrested, never been to prison or jail, never been evicted. I even had a little jive $500 limit creidt card living on disability. When I was looking for apartments I could move to the better parts of town because, I did not have any strikes against me. Oh Baltimore City Police stopped me often for the crime of being black in public as an autistic adult but I’m not into the druggie criminal scene and never was. So when programs had tight requirements like no criminal, eviction or drug abuse history I was undeterred. I never will forget there was a program that helped with college funding but it had a no dope addicts, no ex con cause so I applied since I wasn’t a dope addict or an ex con. The guy taking the applications felt he’d have a bit of fun with me by saying theire would be a drug test that looked back a year. He lost all his joy when I gladly stepped forward rolling up my sleeve saying where do I go for the test. He was so sure I’d run away.The reason I share my own life history here is this book opened my eyes. The reason I did well and so many black folk don’t is because; growing up my parents gave us a stable home, lots of great food to eat, ample clothes and a good many luxuries by this books painful grinding poverty standards. My parents with their good jobs and stable hom purchased the luxury of being able to spend time with us teaching us budgeting, good citienship, manners, business sense, investing, the importance of education, job readiness skills, courtesy, proper written spoken english and so much more. I can talk with intelligence on most subjects because; my parents taught us to read about everything. I brought this book because; I honestly don’t know what it is like for poor black and white people today. Reading this book will hurt your heart however. I had to put the book down a few times when some of the people made bad choices. No on made me madder than Scott who is white was a nurse and had EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!Scott blew his life up because he wanted to and I find that amost unforgivable. I just don’t understand Scott who had everything a LPN job making good money, nice home with all the trimmings and he just chooses to start abusing drugs what I putz. White men like Scott make me mad because; they choose to fail. A black man often gets arrested just because he is poor ignorant and black. A black lady gets evicted just because; she often has children & no money. But Scott he is WHITE, WELL EDUCATED, LPN NURSING DEGREE by black standards Scott was rich. Scott did not have his life taken away as most poor black folk do. Scoot threw his life away and while I hurt for him it is not the same.Oh yeah this book will open your eyes because; this book keeps it real. Now the Epilogue is just a bunch of liberal garbage advocating for an Obamacare solution to the housing problem. Yeah as if giving every bum and bum-ette a house will magically make them into model citizens, it won’t! It was not my parents house that made me a black autistic success story. My parents took the time to make me a quality educated, empowered person able to shape my own destiny by the grace of Almighty God. I am great only because my family invested time into making sure I stayed away from drugs, drug addicts, ex cons and other low life. The book is awesome and mostly right Eviction Poverty and Profit are a devils dance that destroy families, neighborhoods and lives but a house alone is not the answer. Many of the problems the people in this book face are the result of stupidity ignorance and lack of strategic tactical planning on a scale I would not have felt possible.

⭐The one thing that stands out here is that America has a very flimsy and poorly constructed safety net – if you can call it that. There were so many mis-steps for everyone along the way here that were so easily avoided with some common sense and basic rules.People on welfare should not be able to blow their entire month of food stamps on lobster. If you have a job you shouldn’t be taking time off to help someone move and then you lose your job. If a child kicks a teacher the family should not be evicted because of that. Many times I let out an enormous sigh of frustration at the sheer stupidity and arbitrary actions. ‘Crystal’ needed serious intervention, not be left to cause mayhem and chaos.I don’t claim to know the answer to this massive social problem but providing basic needs, removing the threat of eviction, holding landlords to account, structured drug counseling – it would go a long way with a complete overhaul of the current system. It can be done with money that is currently being wasted.

⭐The is a stunning, highly readable piece of sociology, focusing on the private rental housing market in inner city Milwaukee and on the way in which the poor have to negotiate every aspect of their lives through the prism of unaffordable rents. It is not a crusading book, except in as much as being confronted by uncomfortable truths might cause readers to look differently, or even to look at all, at uncomfortable realities in the world around us. Reading this book in the comfort of a different continent (I am a European) the book appears almost prophetic. Policies initiated in the USA are copied by right wing governments in Europe. In Britain the social housing stock is being steadily reduced despite promises to the contrary, benefits are sanctioned and evictions are on the rise. We need to read this book and learn.

⭐Numerous stories of people who are evicted, repeatedly, from their homes apparently through no fault of their own except for poor education, psychiatric problems, drug addition, multiple unwanted pregnancies etc., which may not be their ‘fault’ only but it is certainly not the landlord’s. Long on emotion and short on facts. Solution suggested: we as a society must invest more in public housing. If only it were that simple!Hard to believe that this book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction 2017.

⭐This book will haunt me for quite some time. By following the stories of those who face eviction time and again, I felt I came to know those who are at the bottom of life, and simply can’t climb out of that pit. The impact upon their children, in particular, is harrowing. Reading this book helps you to understand why the poor remain poor.Although the author did his research in the USA, I could see correlations with experience of people in the UK.

⭐Documenting the spiral of poverty that comes with low rent, low protection housing in a US city. Really powerful stuff and makes me so pleased we have a welfare state in the UK. When there is no safety net, it becomes almost impossible to bounce back.

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