Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

by Matthew Desmond

We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty. Not everyone living in a distressed neighborhood is associated with gang members, parole officers, employers, social workers, or pastors. But nearly all of them have a landlord.

What the chief failed to realize, or failed to reveal, was that his department’s own rules presented battered women with a devil’s bargain: keep quiet and face abuse or call the police and face eviction.

But equal treatment in an unequal society could still foster inequality. Because black men were disproportionately incarcerated and black women disproportionately evicted, uniformly denying housing to applicants with recent criminal or eviction records still had an incommensurate impact on African Americans.

America is supposed to be a place where you can better yourself, your family, and your community. But this is only possible if you have a stable home.

When people have a place to live, they become better parents, workers, and citizens.

Eviction is a cause, not just a condition, of poverty.

All this suffering is shameful and unnecessary. Because it is unnecessary, there is hope.

Decent, affordable housing should be a basic right for everybody in this country. The reason is simple: without stable shelter, everything else falls apart.

Child labor laws, the minimum wage, workplace safety regulations, and other protections we now take for granted came about when we chose to place the well-being of people above money.