Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City



Matthew Desmond’s Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City is a fascinating and sobering view of the dynamics of housing for the very poorest members of our society.  Probably the most important element of Desmond’s book is the insider view.  He gets into the nuts and bolts of a slum trailer park (both from the owner and renter's view), as well as the complex interactions between a 'slum' lord and her tenants.  

The object lesson: our government and society simply do not do enough to raise people out of the cycle of poverty.  Our policies are not geared toward improving the income of our most disadvantaged citizens.  We largely ignore or punish them for their poverty.  And the near homelessness of such people, only compounds the problem.

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