Evicted Poverty Profit American City Critique

The book that I selected for this discussion is, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond. From the onset, it would be prudent to note that this is one of the most informative books I have read in recent times. What interests me most about this particular book is the extent to which the author goes to uncover some hidden aspects of poverty in the United States, i.e. in relation to causes and consequences of poverty. To a large extent, this particular book broadened my viewpoint and/or perspective about poverty and its key triggers.

In as far as the central argument of this particular book is concerned, I think the author attempts to argue that our understanding of poverty is largely inaccurate. In deriving some of his conclusions, the author in this case relies on varied data, i.e. the proportion of income being spent on housing, individual debt figures, eviction rates during the 2008 economic crisis, gender disparities in eviction, etc. The author of this particular book appears to draw from the family process theory – specifically indicating that long-term stability of families and general wellbeing of members could be reinforced by stable housing. Indeed, as Mayberry, Shinn, Benton, and Wise (2014) observe, “family processes theoretically mediate the effects of stressors associated with poverty and homelessness on long-term outcomes for parents, children, and families” (96). The principal methods that the author relies upon is observation and interviews – in which case he engages a total of 8 households and their landlords. The author makes an interesting finding in relation to the causes of poverty. For instance, the author argues that the genesis of descent into poverty for most families during the 2008 downturn in economic activity could have been mass evictions following failure to pay rent. Most of us see poverty as the cause of the said evictions.

There are many concepts presented in book that I would want to share with my professional peers. For instance, after reading this particular book, I came to the realization that women are disproportionately affected in efforts to secure housing. This is more so the case given that they happen to be the gender most affected by evictions. This is a fact that I was previously unaware about – and which I would bet most of my professional peers are also largely unaware about. Indeed, as the author of this particular book points out, in an attempt to better articulate this sorry state of affairs, “if incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women. Poor black men were locked up. Poor black women were locked out” (98).

It would be prudent to note that so far, this particular book connects to my work by broadening my understanding about poverty. Poverty has a significant impact on multiple other aspects of life including health and wellbeing, education attainment, etc. With this understanding, I could further broaden the available information base by conducting a study that seeks to assess the impact that poverty has on education attainment – with an intention of, amongst other things, proposing better interventions to address this particular social-economic concern. What comes out clearly from this particular text is the role that unaffordable housing plays as a cause of poverty (and not just a symptom of poverty). For instance, we have a tenant whose rent is $550, whereas her income is $628 per month. This effectively means that a significant portion of her income (approximately 87%) is shaved off by rent. This is a clear indication that the relevance of formulating and implementing strategies meant to secure the wellbeing of tenants whose household incomes happen to be below the median.