A review by nmupp1324
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

5.0

First off, Desmond is an amazing author. He interweaves facts and personal stories from tenants to explain the problem. I read this book last year, but it was an amazing read. Never got around to writing about it. The housing system in America is terrible; this is old news, but I had no idea just how bad it is until I read this book. The systems that are in place actively try to keep people homeless. Tenants are evicted with very little protection from the government. The protection that is there has layers of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, making it inaccessible to people who are living paycheck to paycheck. It's disheartening.

Desmond was "on the frontlines" with these families that were forced to pay almost 80% of their income on rent! It's egregious and sounds like something out of a horror story. The families that he talked about were suffering because of it. I'm astounded at just how bad the system is.