Friday, March 15, 2019

Matthew Desmond, Evicted ****

Evicted follows the housing travails of several people in Milwaukee in 2009, including both evictors and evictees. It addresses the social systems of housing by telling specific individual stories, similar in style to Random Family.  Like Random Family, the story teaches me about whole economies that are invisible to me; for example, moving companies whose entire business is handling evictions and storage units for the now-homeless people. Many people end up living (at least temporarily) with complete strangers who find themselves in similar circumstances.

Evicted includes interesting little details, such as how it can be advantageous for poor folks to buy extravagant items on layaway because if that money were in the bank they'd lose their benefits.  This headline from the review in the Guardian captures the overarching theme: "What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?"

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