Depressing, important read. If you like non fiction that's going to inform you of important facts and realities, while perhaps leaving you depressed, this is it. HOWEVER, an astute reader (which I hope you are if you're picking up this book!) may find themselves motivated more than depressed. Wanting to change our society, our rules and find repairs for our flaws.

Every one in America should read this book. It is thought provoking, sad and will change your perception about 'homelessness. I know I will never drive through a run-down neighborhood and see it the same way again.

Book was an eye opener and deserved the high praise it received. It's become a classic at this point, deservedly slow. Was showing the effects of inequality before that became the trend of the moment.

The author focuses heavily on only two key interview subjects, which narrows this scope of this important examination of housing.

Imagine for a moment, you're a single mother with two kids living on food stamps, unable to obtain housing. You've put yourself on a wait list, but unfortunately the list is so long it will be decades before your name comes up based on the number of total units in your city, maybe your grandkids will be able to claim your waiting list spot, assuming they survive to adulthood.

You want to give your kids a better life but unfortunately you can't find a place to live in a neighborhood that isn't overridden by crime, drugs, and violence. After submitting hundreds of applications you find a landlord willing to rent because he doesn't conduct background checks, this allows you to finally obtain a place to live, but unfortunately your kids are surrounded by unsavory neighbors that may introduce them to drugs or other harmful influences. Your neighbor is a victim of domestic violence but you don't dare call the police because that is considered a disturbance in which your landlord can evict you for. You don't have a working stove to cook meals for your children, and your water is frequently turned off, and you can't call the city property inspectors because you are behind on rent and therefore, your landlord has a right to evict you and not make necessary repairs. If you do get evicted it will become nearly impossible to find your next apartment as most (if not all) deny applicants with previous evictions. One day your home gets broken into and you can't afford to pay for the broken window, and despite being finally caught up on rent, your landlord evicts you for the damage caused by the robbery.

While you pay the price of your eviction by losing your home, you ultimately pay an even bigger price spending years displaced, unable to give your kids a stable home and keep them in the same schools, or within a supportive community.

Before reading this book I didn't fully grasp the scale of our eviction problem in the United States. I didn't realize how drastically the percentage of tenants who experience an eviction or who have been forced to leave their homes has exploded in recent years, compared to what it was decades ago.

This book takes place in Milwaukee but as the author points out, it's a story that could be told about nearly any mid-size or bigger city in the United States. An eviction isn't an isolated event, because it has a ripple effect for years to come and impacts ones ability to find a job, find housing, or qualify for food stamps and other government programs.

In 2013, 1% of poor renters lived in rent controlled units, 15% lived in public housing, and 17% lived in subsidized housing (often in the form of a rent reducing voucher), that means 67% or 2/3 of poor renting families in the United States received no federal housing assistance. The story of the Welfare Queen that has been propagated by republicans, is a myth. Most are falling through the cracks and our public policy contains large holes that ignore the fundamental component that stable and safe housing plays in the poverty cycle.

Also - don't skip the Epilogue, it provides a wealth of information on solutions and statistics.

I absolutely devoured this book. Desmond does a fabulous job painting the picture of the chronically housing unstable population. I grew up in a less severe version of this, and it was so accurate. Should be required reading.

I had heard Matthew Desmond speak about this situation about a year ago. He was a fabulous speaker and made me want to learn more about this situation. His book follows 8 families in Milwaukee and their landlords.

The stories in the book are heartbreaking. Most of the stories involved families that are living so close to the edge that all it takes is one event requiring additional income which makes them lose their housing. It becomes a downhill spiral from there. Once they are evicted, it is harder to find housing, and often the housing is worse than before.

One of the stories, though, was of a man who had been making a good living as a nurse until he had an accident one day and was given pain killers. He became addicted to the painkillers, losing his job.

Sometimes the individuals just make poor choices, but who knows, I might make the same poor choices if I had had their experiences. Often though, the system is stacked against them.

I did feel that he also pointed out the viewpoint of the landlords who also need to make a living, but often they didn’t play fair either. If they allowed a tenant to work off their debt, the landlord often wasn’t giving them credit at a reasonable amount.

One of the members of the book group that read this, felt like they would have like to have more backstory and detail focus on some of the families because they didn’t feel particularly attached to the person. I think this was a valid comment and would have made the stories even more impactful.

He does recommend some suggestions at the end of the book to help this situation.

I think this is an eye-opening informative book that I would encourage everyone to read.

The struggles of many can be found in this book. It’s an eye opening read and gives great insight into the struggles of many people today. What happens when people get evicted and what leads up to the dreaded eviction notice. In a world like today where being a homeowner can be a struggle for many and the demands of keeping up with the day to day needs is a tough situation for many. This is a must read of the realities of many. Not a just for fun read but one that will make you think about society today.

Really well done summary of the tenant/ landlord struggle and systemic poverty in America today. Very fair reporting to both sides.

In Evicted, the author a Sociology professor at Princeton explores low income housing issues faced by the poor in Milwaukee, WI. As part of his research he lived in various low income communities in Milwaukee, which included a trailer park with mostly white low income people and also a rooming house with mainly black people. Gathering information from renters, landlords, housing courts and court files, he documents specifics on (6) families and (2) landlords. The findings are at times shocking.

Many of the individuals who found themselves in dire situations have made poor life choices but, others, born into poverty, simply never stood a chance for a better life or the opportunity to rise above poverty. Being poor, with not enough money to get by sets some individuals up to be victimized by others: payday loan advances, rent to own furniture at ridiculous payment fees and super high interest credit card and loan rates as well. They simply move from one crisis situation to another.

Evicted is an eye-opening book that examines the issues faced by the poor relative to housing. I thought it was well-researched but, not that well written, the flow just seemed off. I am happy I gave it a try though.

https://bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com/2018/12/evictedpoverty-profit-in-american-city.html

First, I wish to thank NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the opportunity to read this digital e-book in exchange for an unbiased, honest review.

ethnography: the study and systematic recording of human cultures; also : a descriptive work produced from such research - Source Merriam Webster On-line Dictionary

Mattherw Desmond is a sociologist whom takes his work and studies very close to heart, and Desmond approaches Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City from the point of view as an ethnographer. Ethnography is almost totally written from the perspective of the first person point of view. Yeah, you follow my drift. The ethnographer most often finds themself completely submeged and experinecing the human cultures that they are currently writing. Live it, walk it, talk it.
Evicted, a NY Times Best seller, is on many “top” lists of 2016, and amazingly still maintains an 4.49-star rating after a measly 33,447 ratings and 5,298 reviews. That is simply amazing when on stops to ponder. Matthew Desmond has basically re-defined everything that we think that we know about poverty and being poor in America today. And when it gets right down to it, hasn’t there always been some morally bankrupt person who emerges just at the right moment to cash in on the misfortune of others? So, this should come as some big shocking surprise that offends us to our very core?
Evicted is a fantastic book in which Desmond has re-shaped our thoughts, beliefs and images concerning poverty and the poor with this human cultural study of Milauwkee, Wisconsin, the eighth poorest city in America. A reviewer could write positive adjectives about Evicted until he or she was blue in the face. Eight differnt subsets of the poor are written about, each with a set of different conditions or hardships. (ie. - family too soon, no fathers, drug abuse, educational shorcomings, medical situations) And there are a couple of landlords (slumlords) and their significant others.
Desmond follows the helpless plight in detail for each of these cases, including how the various government agencies failed them at times and actually enabled the landlords many times. In fact, it became fairly common knowledge among renters and renter assoiciations that renting to the poor and downtrodden was often much more profitable than renting to the wealthier, privileged whites in town. What is wrong with this picture? Fleecing the government. pehraps? Nah. It ain’t gonna happen.
I will prbably not ever read a book in this genre as good as Matthew Desmond’s Evicted. I loved it. I am very glad that I read it. It is not a book that I could sit down and read it until I’ve finished. But, man … However, this book will not be for everyone. It is very sad and depressing to see how people are taken advantage of. It is sad to see how little ambition some people have. It is sad that these things are allowed to go on in an advanced society such as ours. Thank you Matthew Desmond for giving us this literary gift with Evicted. An easy 4-star rating for me.

Difficult subject matter, paired with incredible writing. Powerful and relevant-well worth the time.

A must-read for every American; well-researched, well-written and superbly executed.

EVICTED is an important book that addresses the often overlooked struggles of poverty stricken America: housing. Fewer people than expected are eligible for public or subsidized housing, leaving the poor at the mercy of landlords that often overcharge for inadequate apartments. Mr. Desmond does not make the book only about the poor and oppressed victims of poverty, evictions, abusive landlords, and a system never intended to protect them on the first place. Many of the tenants make terrible decisions, some based on desperation, some inexplicable to most of us not living under their circumstances, but the book does not hide them. Likewise, Mr. Desmond does not unfairly vilify the landlords. He followed a few of them on the book, too, getting their sides of things. Unpaid rent, destroyed properties, unauthorized tenants. Huge expenses incurred as a result of property ownership and maintenance, unfair Laws and police policy on dealing with tenants that do nothing more than utilize police services available to anyone else with no questions, but that labels them a “nuisance.”

If there is one thing I took from this book, it is that housing issues among the poor are patently unfair and contribute, probably more than any one thing, to the conditions of crime amd disrepair in inner cities. The housing crisis and tragedies of inner city life are closet related, and more stable housing options would improve inner city life for everyone, and likely save money in the long run, even considering the expense of increasing housing subsidies.

The second is that while these are complicated issues. Tenants and landlords are responsible for some of the housing horrors; but so is public policy at the Federal, State, and local levels. And as too often seems to be the case, the poor are getting screwed so the rich can have more, one example mortgage interest tax deductions that could largely fund a housing subsidy program and provide housing to those that need it more than the interest deductions are needed.

At the end, some suggestions to help alleviate the housing problems were discussed.

Finally, Mr. Desmond described in detail his research methods for the book, including his embedding himself in the communities he wrote about while simultaneously researching and studying both existing data and date he collected. The book was presented as the story of just a few groups of people and told anectdotally, but it seems Mr. Desmond ensured that the stories of those he wrote about were typical of what others into similar situations were experiencing, not just in Milwaukee, but across America.

Every one in America should read this book. It is thought provoking, sad and will change your perception about 'homelessness. I know I will never drive through a run-down neighborhood and see it the same way again.

Excellent book. I'm very glad that Matthew Desmond wrote it. It must have been a struggle to live with this dysfunctional system for so long. I was glad for his explanation of how he did the research. Really well done, with great notes. This book explores the lives of several people in Milwaukee, both landlords and tenants. It was maddening and heartbreaking. I had to read it just bits at a time. I would get depressed and frustrated and need to read something else. Which just points up the hardship these people live with in that they cannot get away from it. This is an understudied area of poverty and really needs addressing. Mr Desmond does have some interesting ideas on how to mitigate the problems. An important book, a must read in my estimation.

Desmond, a sociologist, spent 2008-2009 in Milwaukee, immersed in the lowest end of real estate. This mesmerizing book follow two landlords--the owner of decrepit trailer park and a female landlord with an accumulation of duplexes, along with the constantly changing roster of renters, their families, children, exs, the local police, building inspectors, social services and churches. This world is exhausting, and a $20 crisis can send people into homelessness overnight, with consequences (in case after case, landlords would refuse to rent to people listed in the city's database as having been evicted, or who had children, and the quickly multiplying storage fees for people's bonded property in an eviction warehouse are often impossible to ever catch up on) that make climbing out of even shallow holes nearly impossible. Meanwhile, landlords with badly deteriorated housing stock rent at higher rates to riskier people than better housing available to others, knowing that their tenants have every incentive not to complain about busted windows, failing plumbing and leaking roofs. Well-meaning programs end up doubled back on vulnerable people, like the neighborhood nuisance laws which virtually guarantee that a domestic violence victim will be evicted if anyone calls the cops. Every day is a negotiation between the renters, the landlords and the bureaucracy, making for high stakes anxiety and constant disruption, especially for maintaining a valid ID or keeping kids in a familiar school. For every "well, why don't *these people* just do X", Desmond provides compelling explanations and the reality that, in similar circumstances, very few of us could do better than his subjects.

LOVED this book - this is a really important issue and the book discusses it in an engaging way.

Such an important book. I learned so much from this book and at the same time it was very engaging. I do not read a lot of nonfiction, but this one really held my attention.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for this free readers edition. In exchange I am providing an honest review.

Wow. What an excellent look into one of the many issues of poverty in America - and probably in other countries as well. Honestly this isn't a book you read to be uplifted, it's actually very depressing. It's a book you read to become informed, to gain insight and hopefully some understanding, to realize that people are people no matter their circumstances, to force yourself to think in ways differently than you've been taught to think about issues like this. Matthew Desmond didn't just sit down with some people and shadow people for a week - he LIVED there for months, he experienced first hand from both a landlord's pov and a tenant's pov the issues that add to the muddy waters of poverty.
Desmond's look takes place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin - America's fourth poorest city. He features 8 people in his insiders look - two landlords and six families. Sherrena Tarver, one of the landlord's, is a study in contradictions, in my opinion. She wants to help people but she doesn't. A sink is leaking? She refuses to fix it, says the tenant has broken it on purpose. This is a small example of a very large problem. The tenant's, not all of them in the book have Sherrena as their landlord, then refuse to pay rent until the problem has been fixed and around and around it goes until the landlord evicts the tenant. Sherrena came across to me as whiny and unwilling to be a true landlord. She wanted it to be easy and comfortable. She wasted time, in my opinion, evicting people instead of working with them - like fixing the damn sink so it worked. No matter how much insight Desmond gave the reader into Sherrena's thought processes regarding being a landlord I felt zero sympathy for her "plights" and a whole lot of disgust for her and her husband instead. It's true that not all tenant's are going to pay their rent on time when everything is in working order but many more would be compelled to. It's true that not all tenant's will hold a steady job but many more would be able to if they weren't expending so much energy trying to ensure they have a roof for their children and themselves. It's true that not all tenant's have ambition to do more than live off of any government assistance they can qualify for but the majority do have ambition - such as Arleen who had a dream of starting a ministry to help people in need or Vanetta who wanted to be a nurse or Scott who was a nurse and loved it but allowed his drug addiction to interfere and lost his license. Desmond peels back the outer layer of the people featured to expose the person and some of the real reasons why they are in the position they are in - always reminding us that they are humans. At the end of the book Desmond offers possible solutions for this piece of the poverty puzzle while acknowledging that it would take a mindshift of many and cooperation of many to see changes to the system.
Excellent book. Not dry at all but very read worthy and engaging. Again, do not read if you are looking for light and fluffy.