LAUREN AMMERMAN, GUEST BLOGGER
Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Evicted is an excellent place to start for any reader who wants to delve into the world of fair housing research. An approachable read, Evicted follows individuals and families in some of Milwaukee’s low-income neighborhoods. The book represents both landlord and tenant perspectives, and readers get to know a demographically diverse cast of characters.
Readers get a note on Desmond’s methodology, an impressive aspect of the book. Desmond spent time living in the places that he writes about, interacting with the people in his book; this knowledge of who they are allows the characters to shine, flaws and all. The reader is drawn to the characters not because they are perfect, but because they are real. Their actions and lives are not sugarcoated such that we feel Desmond isn’t giving us an honest account of the fact that we all make mistakes—but some of us have a safety net to catch us when we fall, a fact that is ably highlighted in Evicted.
We could all learn a great deal from the creative problem solving that these families engineer. Desmond’s account of the people he featured as multi-faceted individuals who are hardworking, adaptable, and sometimes unwise is a core strength of his writing. The resilience and hard work of the families in the book is inspiring, but it also makes readers think deeply about their own assumptions and any ideas about poverty they may hold. Readers get a glimpse of how losing one’s home or living in almost uninhabitable conditions can cause intense collateral damage and hopelessness, in ways that the more privileged cannot imagine until they confront the stories of others. Desmond’s writing and story-telling made me care about what happens to the families in Evicted. I felt their pain and hoped right along with them.
Evicted discusses eviction, of course, but also housing discrimination. That discrimination comes in all forms: family status, race, whether or not a prospective tenant has a criminal history, or whether they receive government assistance. Desmond makes sure that readers understand that he is writing about a widespread problem, but the book is also a call to action to improve policy and to enforce already existing law. I recommend Evicted to anyone who wants to understand what it is like to face housing insecurity and all of the other emotions and setbacks that come along with it.
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