A review by yetanothersusan
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

4.5

I could probably talk about this topic for close to 418 pages myself. Desmond brings up several good points, could have followed some of them farther into a discussion, but seems to have left the points there for the reader to ponder. As he mentioned, we can't build our way out of this problem; however, not building affordable housing is making things exponentially worse. One issue that stays with me is the issue with calling 911. If a tenant (usually female) has an abusive partner and calls 911, the landlord can be fined for excessive calls. So, the landlord tells the tenant not to call or evicts them. But then law enforcement pops up at press conferences for domestic abuse victims and says "oh if only they had contacted us!" Maybe we should quit victim blaming and questioning victims and start being tougher on abusers in the first place? Maybe we should streamline a lot of the systems we expect those in need to work through to get assistance? Lots of maybes going on here.