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.
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
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.
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.
The book uses specific examples to show that the pricing of the units and lack of resources available to those of the lower class furthers inequality; the pricing and lack of resources results in a staggering amount of evictions that take place because these people are unable to keep up with the price of a place to live when there is no financial help available to them, which is not the case with the upper class, who have approximately the same or slightly higher rent, but way more means to gain money to pay that rent, thus resulting in the upper class tenants having fewer evictions on their record. The book also demonstrates how the formal eviction process makes it impossible for the lower class to create for themselves a fresh start because of the inclusion of docketed judgments that come back to haunt the previously evicted tenants at times when all is going well for them. Through these two aspects of forced evictions and never ending sanctions for obtaining an eviction, inequality is maintained and perpetuated for the lower class
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.
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.
Both Jeremy Waldron's book, the Harman Hate Speech, and Matthew Desmond's analysis of the housing crisis in America talk about the harm in social hierarchies due to external factors such as poverty and bias. While Waldron's argument about assurance versus dignity in terms of preserving one's right to free speech emphasizes Americans' constitutional rights, Desmond's eviction is an in-depth portrayal of actual real-life American stories that the justice system has betrayed. Both Harms in Hate Speech and Evicted highlight the importance of injustice and the humanitarian need for survival when faced with the theme of just relationships and individuality. During part three of Desmond's eviction, the readers follow the story of Arlene and her two
In the present era, the United States continues to face a major crisis of homelessness and evictions. Harry Truman’s national objective during the mid-1900s of ensuring “the achievement of a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family” is still a dream for many Americans today. This issue caught my attention after reading Matthew Desmond’s book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, where he explains the impact that evictions have had in African American communities. In the most segregated cities, it is common for poor families to be spending as must as 80 percent of their income in trailer parks and houses in poor conditions, where landlords may end up evicting their tenants instead of making reparations
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
The relationship between society and the law is direct, and housing in America is a conclusive example of that. As argued by both authors, once society has made up its mind about a certain group of people or place such as the ghettos, even the law can’t change those facts. It often happens that people of color and minorities get overlooked and stereotyped into something that they are not due to the hierarchical and discriminatory principles of the law. It has been engrained into society to think that minorities are poor, lazy, and overall less productive in the public
In her essay, she points that an individual should not be tagged as a criminal to the society due to his or her poverty. She also points that the government should provide more shelters to homeless, and that the government should help them to find a job in order to have them enrolled back in society. Unfortunately, the public housing, which is a support for poor families provided by the government, has been becoming an easy target for law enforcers to fine people that is in need. As Ehrenreich says, “The public housing that remains has become more prisonlike, with residents subjected to drug testing and random police sweeps”. It demonstrates the elephant in the room that the government wants to avoid such reality meanwhile people is suffering in public houses filled of diseases and filth.
Poverty is not the result of individuals, but rather it is the result of structural factors. The affluent classes are attempting to keep minorities locked into an impoverished political and economic position by using strategies such as gentrification, discrimination, and segregation. Those in position of authority use social profiling and “zero tolerance policies” as a primary tool for enforcing traditional discrimination. In theory, public space welcomes everyone. However, the power structures existed in the society demonstrate a social trend where wealthy people and caucasian move
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.
Homelessness is a product of social inequalities. Karl Marx stated that the capitalist society produces two prominent classes which are in conflict with each other, bourgeoisie and proletariats. The bourgeoisie are the oppressors who own the means of production and the proletariats are the oppressed workers who labor for the bourgeoisie. Capitalism is distinguished not by privilege but instead by individuality of property ownership and that those who create the conditions of the oppressed group express this power in the form of laws that function to serve the bourgeoisie’s interests (Marx, 2004, p.129).
