Book Analysis of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City Essay Example

Monotony molds into adaptation, greed transforms into corrupted power, and yet struggle still yields glimpses of hope and trust for many living on both sides of the poverty line in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In his book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond, a Harvard sociologist, writes in a digestible format, intertwining intense emotions from tenants trapped in the inescapable housing system with logical statistics about the wicked problem of poverty in the American city. Striving to remain objective, Desmond follows the lives of eight families who are both tenants and landlords. He offers us a glance into the homes of those living on both the South and Far South Sides of Milwaukee and into their complicated pasts. Desmond’s unique first-hand perspective into these individuals’ lives helps create a concerning narrative about public and private housing in America. The impoverished people Desmond lives amongst within the book, are forced to constantly overcome unforeseen physical obstacles and the emotional instability that follows. 

Before meeting the victims of poverty, Desmond begins the book with an introduction to those who have learned to work the system, landlords. Sherrena Tarver and her husband, Tobin Tarver perfectly encompass the stereotypical idea of a landlord. Owning a majority of cheaper private housing options in Milwaukee’s predominantly poor, black, South Side, Sherrena has mastered her craft. Renting out affordable, private housing to 9 individuals and their families, Shreena is illustrated as selfish and oftentimes unforgiving. In one of her duplex apartments, Lamar, a disabled veteran is forced to repaint the apartment because he did not have his rent on time. In contrast, in Milwaukee’s predominantly poor white, Far South Side, Tobin is the landlord of the College Mobile Home Park. He is in charge of 6 tenants. Living under each landlord is a tenant. The tenants in the book represent a variety of individuals. Doreen Hinkston and her extensive family lived under Sherrena as well as Crystal Mayberg, a young single woman. On the Far South Side, Tobin oversees addicts like Heroin Susie and the average widow Larraine who occupy the mobile home park.

Each individual's story is alternated each chapter, which creates a unique atmosphere for the reader. Instead of effortlessly reading through the stories of those affected by poverty, Desmond forces the reader to quickly shift focus from one victim to the next, to remember what is happening to each family and their personalities. Poverty is stable and constant, it is always occurring and yet, the average American never sees past the idea of poverty, they never look at what is causing it. Like the format of the book, the reader knows they are reading about evictions and poverty but Desmond takes it one step further and forces the reader to get to know the tenants, the faces of poverty. He makes the ultimate claim that the threat of poverty is alive in average problems all Americans share. Those who live with kids, addiction, a criminal record, or even just bad luck, are always at risk to fall into the doomed hole of poverty. However, the real problem is the corrupted dynamics of the private housing market, which transform average problems into inescapable traps for tenants.While Desmond explores the unfair private housing markets he dares to ask the questions: What happens to human empathy when everything is lost? What happens to the impoverished definition of happiness? How do those evicted recover or do they ever recover? 

Politically, Desmond finds that those with families and kids are often more likely to be impoverished than those without. Arleen Bell, a single mother with three kids, rented a private home from Shreena but soon ran into complications. After leaving her subsided apartment without repaying the Housing Authority at 19, Arleen fell into the private housing market for 20 years. She was trapped. When she seeked assistance, “The Milwaukee Housing authority’s general-occupancy list for merely poor families seeking assistance was closed and backlogged, but it's lists for elderly low-income adults was kept open '' (Desmond 350). This is just one justification for Desmond’s argument that the fate of the impoverished lay in the corrupted housing markets. However, discrimmination against families is seen in other parts of American society. In regards to immigration, “The average wait time for a “green card”—which allows permanent legal residence—is about six years. But a family member from the Philippines or Mexico, countries that have millions of applicants, could wait 20 years'' (London 2). The families who face eviction in America are going through a similar process to those trying to reunite with family members through immigration. Even though Arleen was a single mother working in America, she was unable to receive enough benefits to keep a home for her children. The bigger issue here is not just corruption in the housing market but the wicked problem of discrimination against familes in the American society. 

Socially, Desmond unearths the idea of a unique support system within private housing districts. In Evicted, it is evident that even through hardship, glimpses of hope can be seen when connections are formed between individuals like Crystal and Arleen. When Arleen was evicted. Crystal was empathetic enough to let her stay. However, these favors whether big or small are usually uncommon in disadvantaged neighborhoods. “Support systems that arise organically in poor neighborhoods help people eat and cope, but they also expose them to heavy doses of trauma and sometimes violence” (Desmond 371). Unfortunately, this is where addiction assumes an important role in the community aspect of private housing markets. Desmond follows a 39-year-old former nurse and recovering addict named Scott. Scott’s role in the book is essential in understanding how eviction and addiction go hand in hand. While living at the trailer park, Scott meets a fellow addict who goes by the name Heroin Susie, who offers Scott heroin while he is feening. A friendship blooms, but it also causes Scott to fall back into the hole of addiction. Like the trailer park in Milwaukee, communities like those living in Cincinnati are also a breeding ground for increased addiction and decrease in political advocacy or capacity. Those living under the I-71 overpass on Butler Street in Cincinnati are a community of homeless but also a community of addicts, “Eppstein can see by the orange syringe caps littering the ground that many of them need it” (Horn 2017). Communities like these do little to help the problems like addiction within them, all they do is encourage neighborhood trauma. Desmond writes as if to highlight how detrimental these support systems are in disadvantaged communities. He supports the idea that this is one of the reasons individuals become trapped within private housing districts.