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Analysis Of The Book 'Eviction' By Matthew Desmond

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Reaction Paper: Evicted Brittany Stallings Southwestern Oklahoma State University COUN 5373-6001 Dr. Amy Martin April 2, 2024 Summary of Eviction by Matthew Desmond Matthew Desmond stated, “Eviction is a cause, not just a condition of poverty.” Evicted is a story about the struggles that people go through while trying to survive the housing crisis in America. The author (Matthew Desmond) displays, through storytelling based on real-life situations and fact-based statistical evidence, how common evictions are in America as well as the domino effect that it causes. The main point is that the causes are not always entirely due to the mismanagement of funds. What the author wants the reader to understand is that eviction does not discriminate …show more content…

Thus, resulting in evictions, poverty, inequality, etc., continue to exist at an all-time high throughout our nation. This book is a story about 8 families from two different communities that are all victims of poverty in different ways. It showcases how sometimes knowingly and unknowingly we give in to the agenda to keep certain demographics and neighborhoods at a disadvantage, while also detailing the severity and adverse effects of this problem. The author focuses on Milwaukee’s North side, which is mostly African American and found within the inner city, and a mobile home on the South side of town. This is to show that this crisis is not limited to race; it is a target on the poor and disadvantaged. This book is broken down into 3 parts to detail how tenants and landlords discuss rent and navigate their relationship, the process of evictions, and the outcome once an eviction has been filed. The intention is that the reader will begin to understand the obstacles that the poor are facing and that they are actively being targeted and suffering while simply trying to obtain housing that is safe and affordable. Throughout the book, Desmond uses statistical data gathered from …show more content…

This book is related to the course by how it shows in detail why individuals and families find themselves in need of counseling services for various reasons. Many people feel that there has to be certain catastrophic events that take place (i.e., abuse, neglect, assault) that warrant going to counseling. This book does an excellent job of showing how poverty is the main factor that leads to the downfall of communities and the people in them. It has inspired me even more to want to figure out how I can work on changing the community that I am from, which is starting to decline drastically. 2. What is the difference between a'smart' and a'smart'? This book is related to problems in our present day because it details the severity of poverty and economic exploitation that take place every day. Since the completion of this book and the research that was used at that time, this crisis seems to only be getting worse with no ending in sight. This is not a problem that can be solved simply by working extra hours to meet economic needs. This is a problem that was created at a governmental and societal level, so that is where the change needs to start. Creating more jobs won’t help unless the minimum wage is sufficient enough to cover the totality of economic needs. Citizens are in need of more than just getting the rent paid each month. The cycle of working just to keep housing has led to an increase in mental health problems, drug and alcohol abuse, crime, and abuse and

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Evicted by Matthew Desmond is a novel that tells the stories of families struggling to pay the rent in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In this book, just like Missoula, the stories are intertwined with each other. So far the stories have followed two landlords: Sherrena Tarver and Tobin Charney. Sheerena owns property all over the predominantly black north side of Milwaukee. She is strong and caring, but I think she is not fair to her tenants.

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The last book that I read this summer was Evicted, by Matthew Desmond. The shines the light on the startling reality that fewer and fewer people are able to afford home ownership. Desmond writes, “Today, the majority of poor renting families in America spend over half of their income on housing, and at least one in four dedicates over 70 percent to paying the rent and keeping the lights on” (4). In the book, Desmond humanizes the eviction process and tells the story of 8 families from the eyes of the landlord and the tenant. Desmond shows the landlord’s thought process and how they are forced to survive relying on the payment of others, and Desmond shows the tenant’s struggle in order scrounge up enough money for rent whilen dealing with

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Desmond, Matthew. 2016. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. Crown Books. Book Review Assignment Evicted is a non fictional book written by Matthew Desmond that relates actual events in the city of Milwaukee. Matthew Desmond is a sociologist that follows eight families while these families fight to keep them and their families living with any type of roof over their heads.

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Evicted is a book that tells of America’s very real problem of poverty. Matthew Desmond gives readers a detailed image of the lives of eight people who are struggling to live in some of the poorest of neighborhoods in Milwaukee. The characters in this book speak for themselves and we get to witness firsthand their attempt to rise above poverty and fight against a system that profits off of them being poor. The characters struggle to afford places that many would consider uninhabitable. Eventually, they get evicted when they succumb to multiple problems that are a factor of their surroundings.

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Matthew Desmond’s Evicted takes a sociological approach to understanding the low-income housing system by following eight families as they struggle for residential stability. The novel also features two landlords of the families, giving the audience both sides and allowing them to make their own conclusions. Desmond goes to great lengths to make the story accessible to all classes and races, but it seems to especially resonate with people who can relate to the book’s subjects or who are liberals in sound socioeconomic standing. With this novel, Desmond hopes to highlight the fundamental structural and cultural problems in the evictions of poor families, while putting faces to the housing crisis. Through the lens of the social reproduction theory, Desmond argues in Evicted that evictions are not an effect of poverty, but rather, a cause of it.

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“poverty”(170). Larger Occasion In 2007, 28 percent of Baltimore’s children lived in poverty. Both the author’s mother and the other Wes Moore’s mother struggled to provide for their children. Both took extra jobs in the hopes of providing their children with a better life.

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Have you ever had to choose between eating or having a roof over your head? If you answered no, you are one of the fortunate ones who most likely fall somewhere between middle class to upper class. Those who answered yes are a part of the millions of Americans who are currently facing a fairly new problem that has a light upon it – the lack of affordable housing. In Matthew Desmond’s book Evicted, he writes about numerous eviction stories of families or individuals for several different reasons.

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Matthew Desmond, in his book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, writes about the destitution that the American society is facing with astounding specificity yet without any judgement or voyeurism. Several themes health issues can be inferred either directly or indirectly from the book. These are listed below 1. Despair According to Desmond, being evicted forces families to seek shelter on the streets, or even being forced to move into dilapidated and uninhibited houses.

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In summary, the issues of mental health, insecure housing, ethnicity and age-related poverty are often interconnected and can create self-perpetuating cycles of poverty, or even intergenerational poverty, where one challenge compounds and exacerbates the other. Addressing these issues requires a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach that targets the root causes of poverty and the social services, programs, and resources needed to act as a safety net for low-income individuals. Through the stories of real families experiencing eviction and poverty in Evicted, Matthew Desmond argues that housing instability is not just an isolated issue, but a complex social problem that perpetuates inequality. Moreover, poverty is often structured around both ethnicity and age, with certain minority groups and age demographics experiencing disproportionately higher rates of poverty due to a complex interplay of historical, socioeconomic, and systemic factors. By addressing these issues extensively, as well as the intersection of insecure housing, mental health, and poverty, we can work towards breaking cycles of poverty and improving the well-being of

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Seeing her struggle from this perspective showed me how much power the landlords truly have. If a landlord evicts someone, for whatever reason, this hurts their chances of being able to rent again for the rest of their lives. This is a tremendous amount of power placed in a small amount of people’s hands and highlights the powerlessness of renters overall. As Crystal and Vanetta were applying for apartments, they came across an agency that had a strict set of pre qualifications for renters to meet, including no history of evictions and no criminal records. They did not meet these qualifications, but valued that

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In the study “Racial and Class Divergence in Public Attitudes and Perception About Poverty in USA: An Empirical Study,” professor Francis O. Adeola analyzes existing data to determine if people themselves or a structural influence causes poverty (Adeola 56). Building upon the idea of structural poverty, Adeola contends “poverty rates tend to persist in the same neighborhood over many years” (61). For the other Wes Moore, this neighborhood was the Murphy Project Homes: one of the most dangerous places in Baltimore (Moore 18). Furthermore, he examines how “[t]he poor form a unique subculture,” reinforcing aspects of poverty (Adeola 61). The subculture that surrounded the other Wes Moore included the normalization of the presence of drugs and

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The United States has more people in prison than any other country in the world and incarcerates people at a higher rate than ever before, yet the crime rate is not higher in the US than in other countries. The criminal justice system in the United States has a long history of disproportionately targeting minority individuals. It is important to understand that this system isn’t just broken and in need of repair but was designed by individuals in power to suppress and maintain dominance over minorities. The effects of this design can be observed through both empirical and anecdotal evidence, especially in Milwaukee, which is said to be one of the most segregated cities in the United States. Many of the characters in Matthew Desmond’s book Evicted, are either victims of this design or have observed it in action in their own

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“Poverty and Profit in the American City”, as described by Matthew Desmond, a Harvard sociologist; within His book Evicted. Within this book describes the harsh realities of the American people who struggle day-to-day providing a shelter over their families’ heads. Not getting enough from the economy, but putting a lot into it creates problematic issues and disputes between renters and landlords. Although this may not be a struggle you as reader can relate to, but it is worth a reading to receive intake on the problems American Cities face today. Evicted is a book that explains the reality from those who are victims to poverty from those who profit off of those victims.

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As time goes on, the rate of homelessness rises as the population rises. Homelessness then was mostly caused by a family’s history of being homeless, drug abuse, mental disorders, and tyrannical leaders forcing his people into poverty. In modern times, several organizations are now trying to end homelessness by building cheaper housing projects more affordable to the poor and homeless shelters; these projects usually cost a fair amount of money.

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