Book Review: Evicted by Matthew Desmond
(Review by Margaret Rhodes)
In his important, recent book, Evicted, Matthew Desmond
provides a devastating appraisal of the U.S. housing crisis. He follows eight families in Milwaukee as
they move from one dilapidated apartment to the next, and then finally to
homelessness. On average, tenants spend 60 or 70 percent of their income on housing,
with little leftover for other expenses.
Inevitably they fall behind on rent, often resulting in an
eviction. After an eviction, landlords
are less willing to accept tenants, forcing them into worse neighborhoods where
landlords are less choosy and apartments in worse repair. Families find it even
harder, with fewer landlords accepting children. Desmond found that one in
eight renters in Milwaukee experienced at least one forced move.
The personal stories Desmond relates are filled with misfortune,
often stretching back generations, misfortune fueled by poverty. Through the stories Desmond ably conveys the
stress of facing homelessness and hunger, the sadness of not being able to give
your children what they need, as well as the incredible resilience and often
resourcefulness that his subjects demonstrate. As Desmond points out in the
conclusion, home gives us our sense of safety and well-being. For most of us in
stable housing, it is a refuge from the rebuffs of society. It is where we find
community, have time with our children, heal from the rebuffs of daily life. When your housing keeps changing or is taken
from you, it is a traumatic experience, sometimes resulting in your furniture
being piled on a sidewalk outside. It can mean sudden changes in your
children’s schooling, food stamps not being sent to the correct address, and of
the community supports that are found in a stable neighborhood.
We already know these stories, but Desmond focuses our
attention on how the private housing market, with its often exploitative rents,
has become a key factor in families’ slide into extreme poverty. At times he
argues that it is the central cause: he states that the problems endemic to
poverty “…stem from the lack of affordable housing in our cities.” (333) This
overstates what he has shown, but still he is making an important point, backed
up by the eight tenants he follows and the statistical evidence he presents.
Equally important, although he paints a grim picture of
eviction, he does not view the problem as hopeless. He argues in the conclusion
that the suffering he has pictured throughout the book is unnecessary.. One of
the biggest problems to a solution, according to Desmond, is the exploitative
rental practices in the private housing market. Apartment prices are often
increased in areas where tenants have little choice, and since housing is
scarce in many cities, landlords can charge what they want. Desmond suggests
that the solution does not reside in more public housing, but in making
available a housing voucher for any poor family. He suggests ways to monitor
its use, so that neither tenant nor landlord can use it exploitatively. He also
argues for legal representation for any poor tenant facing eviction. A legal program in the South Bronx for poor
families that ran from 2005-8 prevented eviction in 86% of the cases (1300
altogether.) It cost $450.000. but saved the city more than $700,000 in
estimated shelter costs.. Solutions are possible, but they depend on our
acceptance of housing as a basic right and a public willingness to bear the
cost.
.
In his final section, “About this project,” Desmond
addresses some of the problems and challenges of doing this sort of
ethnographic work. He raises the question of his exploitation of those he has
interviewed, though he does not address it fully, beyond expressing his
gratitude and guilt and detailing a few ways he tried to help those whose lives
he was documenting. He does not discuss
the ethical issues he confronted, leaving me wondering about them. What sort of
permission did he obtain from each of them? Did he show what he had written to
them before he published it? What sort of responsibility does he feel towards
them now? I wish he had said more in answer to these questions.
The book is an important one, and his affection for those he
interviewed shines through, as well as his outrage that so many in our society
are forced to live this way. Read it.
