Matthew Desmond Quotes
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We can start with housing, the sturdiest of footholds for economic mobility. A national affordable housing program would be an anti-poverty effort, human capital investment, community improvement plan, and public health initiative all rolled into one.
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Evictions used to be rare in this country. They used to draw crowds. There are scenes in literature where you can come upon an eviction - like, in 'Invisible Man' there's the famous eviction scene in Harlem, and people are gathered around, and they move the family back in.
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There is a reason so many Americans choose to develop their net worth through homeownership: It is a proven wealth builder and savings compeller.
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Home is the wellspring of personhood, where our identity takes root; where civic life begins. America is supposed to be a place where you can better yourself, your family, and your community.
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A lot of us who grew up in the country, hunting and fishing, being very familiar with the woods and dirt roads, have the skill set you need to fight fire.
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The church should lead on issues of housing and affordability.
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Eviction reveals people's vulnerability and desperation as well as their ingenuity and guts.
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When I was confronted with just the bare facts of poverty and inequality in America, it always disturbed and confused me.
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Poverty is not just a sad accident, but it's also a result of the fact that some people make a lot of money off low-income families and directly contribute to their poverty.
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Families who get evicted tend to live in worse housing than they did before, and they live in neighborhoods with higher poverty rates and higher crime rates than they did before.
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You meet folks who are funny and really smart and persistent and loving that are confronting this thing we call poverty, which is just a shorthand for this way of life that holds you underwater. And you just wonder what our country would be if we allowed these people to flourish and reach their full potential.
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When you fight fires for a few seasons, you know what to expect. Your heart doesn't race as much as it did.
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In a way, no one's harder on the poor than the poor themselves.
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The things you're closest to are often the things you know least about.
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You have to understand the role the landlords are playing in shaping neighborhoods, how they potentially expand or reduce inequality, how their profits are a direct result of some tenant's poverty.
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If we take a hard look at what poverty is, its nature, it's not pretty - it's full of trauma. And we're able to accept trauma with certain groups, like with soldiers, for instance - we understand that they face trauma and that trauma can be connected to things like depression or acts of violence later on in life.
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Trying to learn from communities and engage with policy makers and community organizers all across the country is really important to me.
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It's true that eviction affects the young and the old, the sick and the able-bodied. It affects white folks and black folks and Hispanic folks and immigrants. If you spend time in housing court, you see a really diverse array of folks there.
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We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty.
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Since the publication of 'Evicted', I have had countless conversations with concerned families across America. Teachers in under-served communities have told me about high classroom turnover rates, which hinder students' ability to reach their full potential.
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A lot flows from the question: Is having decent, stable housing part of what it means to live in this country? And I think we should answer 'yes.'
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I felt that writing about peoples' lives was a heck of a responsibility, and I wanted to know them in a deep way.
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If we continue to tolerate this level of poverty in our cities, and go along with eviction as commonplace in poor neighborhoods, it's not for a lack of resources. It will be a lack of something else.
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Between 2009 and 2011, more than one in eight Milwaukee renters were displaced involuntarily, whether by formal or informal eviction, landlord foreclosure, or building condemnation.