Subtitled "Poverty and Profit in the American City", this nonfiction book explores the stories of those struggling with their housing in the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee.
As Desmond says in his prologue:
"Fewer and fewer families can afford a roof over their head. This is among the most urgent and pressing issues facing America today, and acknowledging the breadth and depth of the problem changes the way we look at poverty. For decades, we've focused mainly on jobs, public assistance, parenting and mass incarceration. No one can deny the importance of these issues, but something fundamental is missing. We have failed to full appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty. Not everyone living in a distressed neighborhood is associated with gang members, parole officers, employers, social workers, or pastors. But nearly all of them have a landlord."
Although researched beautifully (and you should read the end notes as you go along--they're amazingly informative), this book is incredibly readable and accessible. The people that Desmond focuses on are real, richly depicted characters and their situations are gripping and heart-rending. This book is transformative--it gave me insight into an issue that is too easy to overlook in everyday life. I will never view housing, poverty, my work and daily life in the city in the same way again.
Anyone who is interested in issues of social justice and poverty would do well to read this book.
And now all of the quotes that I loved:
"If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women. Poor black men were locked up. Poor black women were locked out." (p. 98)
"Plus, Patrice would have to set foot in that grand old courthouse. The nicest building in Patrice's life was Lena's Food Market off Fond Du Lac Avenue. ....Her white friends called it the ghetto grocery store, but it was one of the better markets on the North Side. And at Lena's, Patrice never felt her existence questioned. She tried not to go to parts of the city where she did." (p. 99)
"Psychologists might agree with him, citing research showing that under conditions of scarcity people prioritize the now and lose sight of the future, often at great cost." (p. 115)
"Efforts to establish local cohesion and community investment are thwarted in neighborhoods with high turnover rates. in this way, eviction can unravel the fabric of a community, helping to ensure that neighbors remain strangers and that their collective capacity to combat crime and promote civic engagement remains untapped. (p 298)
"Establishing publicly funded legal services for low-income families in housing court would be a cost-effective measure that would prevent homelessness, decrease evictions, and give poor families a fair shake."(p 303)
"If it weren't so easy to evict someone, tenants like Doreen and Patrice could report dangerous or illegal conditions without fearing retaliation. If tenants had lawyers, they wouldn't need to go to court." (p. 304)
"Every family below a certain income level would be eligible for a housing voucher. They could use that voucher to live anywhere they wanted, just as families can use food stamps to buy groceries virtually anywhere, as long as their housing was neither too expensive, big, and luxurious, not too shabby and run-down." (more on this on 308)
"I learned that behavior that looks lazy or withdrawn to someone perched far above the poverty line can actually be a pacing technique. People like Crystal or Larraine cannot afford to give all their energy to today's emergency only to have none left over for tomorrow's." (p. 328)
(on ethnography in "about this project")
"But first-person narration is not the only technique available to us. In fact, it may be the least well-suited vehicle for capturing the essence of a social world because the "I" filters all. With first-person narration, the subjects and the author are each always held in view, resulting in every observation being trailed by a reaction to the observer. No matter how much care the author takes, the first-person ethnography becomes just as much about the fieldworker as about anything she or he saw." (p. 334)
More:
"Humans act brutally under brutal conditions…(Maslow) Ideas about aggression in low-income communities that do not account for the hard squeeze of poverty, the sheer emotional and cognitive burden that accompanies severe deprivation, do not come close to capturing the lived experience of people like Arleen and Crystal." (p 376)
"Resource-poor schools in low-income neighborhoods often leave children with subpar language and critical-thinking skills. Those deficits will remain even if those children relocate to safe and prosperous neighborhoods later in life." (p. 377)
"That fancy television in the ratty apartment? Those new shoes worn by the kid eating free school lunch? Their owners likely didn't pay full dollar for them. You can take a nice television off a hype for fifty bucks and find marked-down Nikes at the corner store. The price tags in inner-city clothing stores are for white suburban kids who don't know how to haggle. Next to that big-screen television too it is harder to see what is missing." (p. 378)
"Behavioral economists and psychologist have shown that 'poverty itself taxes the mind,' making people less intelligent and more impulsive." (p. 378)
"The poverty debate could do more to recognize the powerful effects of rejection on a person's self-confidence and stamina. Applying for an apartment or job and being turned down ten, twenty, forty times--it can wear you out." Also "exhausted settling" (p. 379)
"Another approach involves surveying a person's resources before trying to access them. Because in poor neighborhoods the most accepted way to say no is to say, "I can't", people sometimes try to take that option off the table. So, for example, instead of asking, "Can I get a ride?" you ask, "You got gas in your car?" Instead of asking, "Could you make me a plate?" you ask, "You eat?"... Knowing how to ask for help--and, in turn, when to extend or withhold aid--is an essential skill for managing poverty." (p. 390)
See also:
Tally's Corner by Elliot Liebow (1967), All Our Kin by Carol Stack (1974), Sidewalk by Mitchell Duneier (1999), How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis (1997), Fringe Banking by John Caskey (2013), Broke, USA by Gary Rivlin (2010), Scarcity by Mullainathan and Shafir (2013), Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2004), Doing the Best I can by Kathryn Edin and Timothy Nelson (2013), Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrows by Jacqueline Jones (2010), Growing Up Jim Crow by Jennifer Ritterhouse (2006), Every Time I feel the Spirit by Timothy Nelson (2004), When Affirmative Action Was White by Ira Katznelson (2005), When a Heart Turns Rock Solid by Timothy Black (2009), Stuck in Place by Patrick Sharkey (2013), and so so so so so many more.
I LOVED this book. It's a young adult novel that doesn't feel like a young adult novel and it is perfectly lovely.