A review by ala2134
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

dark informative medium-paced

2.0

Very sad and bleak depiction of urban poverty. Reporting on a few individuals gave an in depth look at the challenges poor people face to stay housed. The author clearly was trying to show the injustices these people face at every turn. While there certainly are slumlords and other companies profiting off the indigent, I don’t necessarily agree with the author that eviction is the biggest scourge facing these communities. Instead, what I noticed in almost every story was that drugs seem to be a bigger problem. The one individual in this book who got out of the trailer park ultimately did so by getting clean and finding a stable job. The author didn’t spend much time connecting the dots there which is a shame. Definitely an interesting perspective, but I ultimately didn’t fully buy his final argument that housing vouchers would solve the problem.