Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City 1st Edition

I have been involved with low income housing in Milwaukee for over three decades as a landlord and as an attorney for landlords and tenants. I know the neighborhoods and characters in this book all too well. If you want insight into poor people’s lives as they struggle to keep a roof over their heads, you should buy this book. The other reviews are right about how gripping those stories are. But if you are a graduate of Trump University and think you’ll get some insight into how to make obscene profits by renting to the poor you’ll find anecdotes but no real verified research about the business of landlording. Most significantly, you will not learn the truth that bringing evictions totally destroyed the rental business of Sherrena, the leading landlord protagonist.Strangely, though Desmond interviewed 30 landlords he only focuses on two. One is Tobin, a mobile home park operator on Milwaukee’s south side, which is largely white and Hispanic. Tobin indeed makes a lot of money but that is because he does not have to maintain or repair 95% of the “dwellings” in his park. Tobin rents out a concrete slab with utility connections and the tenants buy or bring their own trailers and pay their own utilities. As owners they are responsible for the exterior and interior condition of their dwelling. Only 5% of the trailers are owned by the park and rented to tenants as a living unit. So Tobin is a landlord only in the sense that you might have a landlord this summer when you drive your Winnebago to a Jellystone Park and pay rent for the parking pad and utility hookups.Then we have Sherrena who with her husband runs about 18 buildings (mostly two-family flats) in the African-American neighborhoods on the north side of Milwaukee. In a chapter titled “The ‘Hood is Good” Desmond blithely accepts Sherrena’s boast that she has a net worth of $2 million and nets $10,000 a month in rental income. Desmond is honest in portraying the many difficulties Sherrena has in collecting rent from her struggling tenants but he doesn’t do the background research (available from local court records) about the many thousands of dollars in unpaid rents and damaged units which sort of cut into profits a little bit.As to her supposed net worth of $2 million, that averages out to $111,000 for each of these 18 ghetto properties - certainly far more than some of the real dumpy ones are worth – but the author does not research the amounts of the recorded mortgages against these properties (ranging between $64,000 and $119,200) which further greatly reduce the claimed net worth. That would have been revealed in the many foreclosures filed against Sherrena’s properties which started within a year after Desmond’s visit to Milwaukee.So when this book came out in 2016 the curious reader might want to know: if the ‘hood is good for the landlord how much better has it gotten since the author did his study in 2009? Research so far shows that not one of Sherrena’s properties remains in her ownership. Starting in 2010 many were bulldozed, went into city ownership via foreclosure for nonpayment of real estate taxes or today sit as haunting, blighted eyesores. A few were foreclosed by lenders, were fixed up and are under new ownership. Evictions by Sherrena ended in the year 2010. So did her non-existent profit. She joins many small-time under-capitalized landlords who have gone bust in Milwaukee and elsewhere since the Great Recession started in 2008 with the bursting of the housing bubble.Please note that I still give the book 4 stars. Its significant defects in reporting on the “profit” aspect of its subtitle are outweighed by the important and detailed research on the effects of eviction in creating and perpetuating poverty. A better and expanded housing voucher program for low income tenants is much needed. Landlords nationwide should join Matt Desmond’s call for its implementation.

When viewed on its surface as a tour through the true lives of its main characters, this is a very engagingly told tale, even a page-turner. Readers will quickly find themselves interested in the tenants and the landlords, and the desire to find out “what happens next” never really goes away after that. The writer presents each person’s background and the action essentially without judgment, leaving readers to conclude what they will about the choices those people make. My sole criticism of the way the story is told is the way it jumps back and forth; after awhile, I had a hard time keeping all the names straight.On a more serious level than mere voyeurism, it became obvious that the writer is very committed to his subject. In this vein, he uses “show and tell” to help his readers better understand (and perhaps empathize with) the challenges faced by those experiencing housing challenges. He succeeds admirably in this respect, but the narrative only moves from storytelling to a mission if the author can defend his eventual assertion that this is a problem is solvable BY OTHERS, and lay out (and perhaps advocate for) sensible solutions. In these respects, the book is weaker.It is obvious that the writer’s proposed solutions must consist of a call to action by people other than the subjects of his book (the “housing challenged”)--there is nothing in this book for them, and they will not be reading it. And indeed, in the last third of the book, the expected call to action for others is what the readers get. They are ultimately asked to accept the assertion that all of the poor choices and lack of impulse control described in the book are driven by housing insecurity, and would essentially disappear if society could only somehow get them into decent housing at below market rents.The narrative does a good job of describing the way in which some of the tenants’ problems are aggravated by housing-related difficulties. That being said, many if not most of these lives would remain broken even if housing were an outright gift. In this small sample of a much larger troubled population segment, we are told domestic violence (frequently by an off-premises boyfriend) is so common that landlords ask their prospective female tenants if there is “a man in the picture”. We see a woman being kicked out of her friend’s apartment for causing problems, getting so angry with her friend that when that friend slips and falls, she stomps repeatedly on her friend’s the face on her way out and then kicks her. We read about a man who was at one time a successful nurse earning a great salary and loving his work succumbing to drugs, eventually stealing them from patients and losing his license as a result, beginning a long spiral that lands him in inadequate housing. (Readers will need to judge for themselves if that guy’s ending is a success story or just another chapter of “work in progress”.) These are just a few off the top of my head.These are not behavior problems caused by housing distress. It is true that some of these folks start out life with one foot already in the bucket due to no fault of their own, and a few of those might make themselves into more responsible members of society if given an initial boost. There probably isn’t a single public assistance program that doesn’t take a few deserving souls into its arms, but the cure-all for society’s ills is not here.One issue the author doesn’t ever really call out a fix for is the Milwaukee Police practice of labeling certain houses as “nuisance units” and holding landlords responsible for tenant misbehavior. As the book explains, a landlord is subject to a big fine if (s)he doesn’t submit a plan to “abate the nuisance” that is accepted by the police. The path of least resistance, and often the only one the police will approve, is eviction of the offending tenant. This not only gets a tenant kicked out on short notice, but puts an eviction on their record in the system, making it very difficult to find another landlord that will rent to them (since landlords usually screen such tenants out). Holding landlords responsible for even minor tenant misbehavior (let alone criminal activity on the premises) that they have no reasonable way of knowing about is a nationwide problem that ultimately falls on the tenants’ shoulders.The Epilogue describes the writer’s proposed solution, which is (wait for it….) another government program! Housing vouchers for everyone, combined with laws that would force landlords to accept them, regardless of the applicant’s desirability as a tenant. This is another fail--replacing market forces with more government programs is a tired and uncreative solution. Eventually this will result in driving private enterprise out and putting the government back in the public housing business, something that even the writer recognizes has not worked well in the past (which is true regardless of whether one agrees with the reason he offers for that). Also, the author’s math is suspect on the costs of such a program, but if provisions for feeding and housing the homeless could be drastically reduced as a result, it might help offset the cost.

I've been a landlord for 40 years in a blue collar town. I started as a compassionate, trusting person willing to work with people and help them achieve stability. As a result, I've had people tell me their kitchen cabinets got stolen, had someone give a friend the storm door to their apartment because their friend liked it, driven someone to an apartment to view it and then had to evict her later due to non-payment, relocated a tenant to a more affordable apartment that she agreed to work on (with me paying for materials) only to have to evict her for non-payment, and overall have lost well over $60,000 in the process. If providing housing is a business, the owners NEED to make a profit. If it's a charity, then it should be run as such. To demonize landlords for needing to make a profit from their time, expertise, investment and energy is unfair. Wal-Mart, car companies, and any other business NEEDS to make a profit to survive and grow. Nobody goes into Wal-Mart and says "I'll pay you half and come back in a week with the balance" and expects cooperation. But a partial rent payment is supposed to be OK. (The fact that it negates the ability to evict that month seems to get lost in the shuffle. If the rent is $700, and I accept $10 as rent on the first, I CANNOT evict for non-payment of rent because the "rent" has been paid (just $690 short). There exists a segment of the population of the people that simply do not respond positively to assistance. Yes, providing such assistance FEELS good for the provider(s), but self esteem and self confidence must be earned, and come from within. The assistance tends to de-incentivize the recipient and deprive them of the opportunity to feel good about themselves and their abilities.

The one thing that stands out here is that America has a very flimsy and poorly constructed safety net - if you can call it that. There were so many mis-steps for everyone along the way here that were so easily avoided with some common sense and basic rules.People on welfare should not be able to blow their entire month of food stamps on lobster. If you have a job you shouldn't be taking time off to help someone move and then you lose your job. If a child kicks a teacher the family should not be evicted because of that. Many times I let out an enormous sigh of frustration at the sheer stupidity and arbitrary actions. 'Crystal' needed serious intervention, not be left to cause mayhem and chaos.I don't claim to know the answer to this massive social problem but providing basic needs, removing the threat of eviction, holding landlords to account, structured drug counseling - it would go a long way with a complete overhaul of the current system. It can be done with money that is currently being wasted.

The is a stunning, highly readable piece of sociology, focusing on the private rental housing market in inner city Milwaukee and on the way in which the poor have to negotiate every aspect of their lives through the prism of unaffordable rents. It is not a crusading book, except in as much as being confronted by uncomfortable truths might cause readers to look differently, or even to look at all, at uncomfortable realities in the world around us. Reading this book in the comfort of a different continent (I am a European) the book appears almost prophetic. Policies initiated in the USA are copied by right wing governments in Europe. In Britain the social housing stock is being steadily reduced despite promises to the contrary, benefits are sanctioned and evictions are on the rise. We need to read this book and learn.

This book will haunt me for quite some time. By following the stories of those who face eviction time and again, I felt I came to know those who are at the bottom of life, and simply can't climb out of that pit. The impact upon their children, in particular, is harrowing. Reading this book helps you to understand why the poor remain poor.Although the author did his research in the USA, I could see correlations with experience of people in the UK.

Documenting the spiral of poverty that comes with low rent, low protection housing in a US city. Really powerful stuff and makes me so pleased we have a welfare state in the UK. When there is no safety net, it becomes almost impossible to bounce back.

This was by far the best book I've read in a long time, and the most illuminating. It takes a multi-faceted look at the structural/cultural discussions of poverty and makes them real and vivid. It also offers some concrete policy ideas that make sense and could navigate the complex political landscape of interests involved in keeping the poor in these conditions. Fantastically researched and human, bringing the reality of exploitation back into poverty debates. Please read this book.