Agroundbreaking work on the central role of housing in the lives of the poor.

Based on two years (2008-2009) spent embedded with eight poor families in Milwaukee, Desmond (Sociology and Social Science/Harvard Univ.; On the Fireline: Living and Dying with Wildland Firefighters, 2007, etc.) delivers a gripping, novelistic narrative exploring the ceaseless cycle of “making rent, delaying eviction, or finding another place to live when homeless” as experienced by adults and children, both black and white, surviving in trailer parks and ghettos. “We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty,” writes the author. Once rare, eviction is now commonplace for millions of Americans each year, most often as a result of insufficient government support, rising rent and utility costs, and stagnant incomes. Having gained unusual access to these families, Desmond immerses us in the lives of Sherrena Tarver, a teacher-turned-landlord who rents inner-city units to the black poor; Tobin Charney, who nets more than $400,000 yearly on 131 poorly maintained trailers rented (at $550 a month) to poor whites; and disparate tenants who struggle to make rent for cramped, decrepit units plagued by poor plumbing, lack of heat, and code violations. The latter include Crystal, 18, raised in more than two dozen foster homes, who moved in with three garbage bags of clothes, and Arleen, a single mother, who contacted more than 80 apartment owners in her search for a new home. Their frantic experiences—they spend an astonishing 70 to 80 percent of their incomes on rent—make for harrowing reading, interspersed with moving moments revealing their resilience and humanity. “All this suffering is shameful and unnecessary,” writes Desmond, who bolsters his stories with important new survey findings. He argues that universal housing vouchers and publicly funded legal services for the evicted (90 percent lack attorneys in housing courts) would help alleviate this growing, often overlooked housing crisis.

This stunning, remarkable book—a scholar’s 21st-century How the Other Half Lives—demands a wide audience.

-Kirkus Review

This is a book about the eviction crisis in America. It is an incredibly powerful, but ultimately very sad book. It really brought the stories of the tenants and the landlords to life in a very powerful way. The tenants in this book are all victims of our unwillingness to assist the poor with housing, even though housing costs continue to rise. People were living in places without stoves, refrigerators, heat, etc., because they had no choice. In some cases, even homeless shelters provided better services than one's own apartment.

The system, at least in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is rigged against tenants (and Wisconsin is not alone in this). Very few states have strong protections for tenants. Entire neighborhoods are torn apart by evictions. For some of the people in this book, their lot in life appears to be their own fault (addiction, inability to hold a job, etc), but eviction becomes a vicious cycle. You don't go to work because you're moving, and you lose your job. You lose your job, and you can't pay your rent and you get evicted. Landlords evict people for calling the police because of domestic abuse happening in a nearby apartment, because landlords get cited if the police show up too often at their properties. People lose their welfare benefits because they've moved and remembering to call the welfare office was the last thing on their mind. And then they get evicted. Landlords purposely refuse to repair property because it costs money, and if residents complain, the landlord finds a reason to evict them. In other words, no one wins but the landlords.

This book is incredibly depressing, but incredibly important. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in sociology, or just the plight of the poor in the United States. ( )

This review is for the audiobook- I rate "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" by Matthew Desmond 4 stars, not for the reporting which was engaging and well researched, but for the lack of reasonable solutions presented at the end of the book. Desmond's realization that "equal treatment in an unequal society could still foster inequality" at about the half way point was telling of how most of the situations would play out. Only some of the individuals portrayed did not fully succumb to the tit-for-tat game that tenants and slumlords play, and it was painful to hear how a system could fail millions at a time and still, such a long time after Desmond had concluded the project, be failing in 2021. Desmond noted that "poverty has not prevailed against their deep humanity", and I nodded my head again and again while listening to him admit he'd been the helping hand in several of the dicier scenes he described. What's being done about the problem now though, that's the question. ( )

I can't remember where I heard about this book, but I was interested in the subject matter, especially since I have family in Milwaukee and have visited the city all my life. This book reveals a Milwaukee I never even dreamed existed. I can hardly believe how sheltered my view of this city--one of the poorest and most segregated of its size in the US--was, and how little I knew of the reality. The author, a sociologist (I think), explores the poverty cycle in an almost matter-of-fact voice, detailing the despair of crime, drug abuse, and evictions that is commonplace in some neighbourhoods, telling the stories of individuals, so that the reader understands that it is human beings experiencing this crushing existence, day in and day out, with no help and no hope. Thankfully, at least one of the stories has a reasonably happy ending, but the rampant epidemic of poverty and homelessness, or at least a profound shelter insecurity, and all that stems from it, is far from resolved. Here in Vancouver we are having a housing crisis, and for all I know there are people dealing with some of the same problems that some US cities like Milwaukee are, but I hope not. I hope the place I live is a bit better than that. I definitely will not see Milwaukee the same way again. ( )

Wow! This reads better than fiction! The author makes each story come alive and after reading the last chapter, he make sit clear as to how he does this. The notes at the end are almost as good as the story itself. I did not read the notes as I read the book, rather I read them after reading the entire book - it can be done either way - the notes are rich with information.
I started reading The Turner House at the same time as reading this book. Since one of the Turner siblings goes through eviction, there was some overlap of stories. ( )