Summary Of The Book 'Evicted' By Matthew Desmond

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, a New York Times best seller, written by Matthew Desmond, truly captures the lives of not only people who are getting or have gotten evicted, but also the landlords who have to evict these people. Desmond follows the lives of eight families including Sherrena, Arleen, Tobin, the Hinkstons, Lamar, Scott and several others, to discover more about their lives and how they have dealt with evictions in Milwaukee. The evictions of these eight families take place all other Milwaukee, the Northside, Southside, Westside and Eastside.

Unfortunately, the loss of housing occurs frequently and takes a psychological toll on the people affected by depression. Desmond displays how Arleen is very troubled when she gets evicted, thrown into the cold, and stranded with nothing. It takes a toll mentally when she realizes she has no home to get away from the cold, but also the eviction will be on her record for the next move. When people get evicted there is so much going against them, that mentally they can’t keep up and become depressed. Desmond describes the depression of a Hispanic woman and her three children during an eviction. At first, she had “borne down on the emergency with focus and energy,” then she started wandering the halls “aimlessly, almost drunkenly, her face had that look, the movers and the deputies knew it well”(125). Desmond adds, “It was the look of someone realizing that her family would be homeless in a matter of hours”(125). With vivid imagery, Desmond truly shows the mindset of a woman who knows she lost everything. Eviction scars people and that it makes a lasting mark on how they mentally feel as if they are worthless.

In How the Other Half Lives, the author Jacob Riis sheds light on the darker side of tenant housing and urban dwellers. He goes to several different parts of the city of New York witnessing first hand the hardships that many immigrants faced when coming to America. His journalism and photographs of the conditions of the tenant housing helped led the way of reformation in the slums of New York. His research opened the eyes of many Americans to the darker side of the nation's lower class. Though it seems that he blamed both the victims and the board forces of society, I believe that he placed more of the blame on the board forces for the conditions that many immigrants faced.

This book weaves the tale of four generations of the Banes family, who lives in Chicago’s poorest neighborhood called North Lawndale. The author spent a year from May 1989 to April 1990 with this family and observed its struggle with the prevailing health care system. The story rotates in the Banes family, Jackie Bane, her husband Robert Bane, their children Latrice, Demarest , Brianna, Jackie's grandmother Mrs. Cora Jackson and Jackie's father and Mrs. Jackson’s son Tommy Markham.

There were a lot of touching stories throughout the book titled Evicted written by Matthew Desmond, one story that really stuck out to me was the story of a man named Lamar. Lamar lived in a housing unit owned by Sherrena. Lamar is hard working man, who lives his life in a wheelchair, and recovering addict. Lamar’s story seemed to have a lot of similar characteristics to what I might expect for someone to have a hard life.

“White people are afforded special privileges in the ghetto(p.322),” Desmond says as he is explaining the time of felling his neighbors in the trailer park that he will be moving to the north side. Larraine was worried for Desmond when he told her that he was going to move to the North Side she even said “No, Matt. You don’t know how dangerous it is”(p.322). Along with Larraine, Beaker was also distraught. Desmond leaving caused the breaking of an ingroup. The stability was hit and they functionality will soon return, but they were sad he was

A suburban life is a paradise full of shopping, colorful gardens, and well-groomed homes. Despite all these benefits, a suburban life is an isolated life. People living in suburbs are rarely exposed to miseries in society. One of these conflicts is homelessness. When living in an environment surrounded by homes, individuals often have difficulty imagining not being able to sleep in a warm bed, eat a proper meal or even receive necessary medical attention. This grim situation is depicted in the writings of Jeannette Walls. In the autobiography The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls accurately portrays homelessness by explaining its causes, its impact upon daily life, and its effect on victimized families.

“The home is the wellspring of personhood. It is where our identity takes root and blossoms, whereas children, we imagine, play, and question, and as adolescents, we retreat and try. As we grow older, we hope to settle into a place to raise a family or pursue work. When we try to understand ourselves, we often begin by considering the kind of home in which we were raised” (Desmond 2016, 293). Evictions! The root of poverty? Matthew Desmond’s novel “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in America City, portrays the lives of tenants, landlords, and house marketing on the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee. Desmond gives the reader overwhelming evidence and revealing testimony illustrating the major impact of inadequate housing on individuals, local, and national level. Desmond’s analysis and observation of his case study enables him to portray the reality of poverty, and to persuade the readers that evictions are a major consequence, and primary contributors in the relentless cycle of poverty. Desmond build his argument using two Aristotelian rhetorical appeals, ethos, logos and inductive reasoning to illustrates the importance of ending the cycle of poverty.

In the beginning chapters of the book, we get a glimpse of the typical home and community of an African American during segregation. Many Africans Americans were too adjusted to the way of living, that they felt

One important thing I learned was about segregation and how it could deeply hurt a town and that if we don’t integrated that we will never be equal. I also learned how bad corruption could affect a town like McIntosh County in a good and bad way. Corruption could be used in a good way, for example, when the trucks were on the road and sheriff Poppel let the poor people take what’s on the truck because they couldn’t afford to buy them. Corruption could also be used in a bad way, like when they were ticking the northerners to take their money or how it took down the hero. The violent act of an unarmed black man being shot in the mouth and dragged to jail with no medical attention was also a concept still happening to this day. We should all take a lesson from this book and making sure we're integrated and were equal, were not corrupt, and not use violence as a way of disciplining

After reading this book, I gained a great amount of new information, which I did not know about before. I acquired new facts about the Jim Crow laws and I also learned about many important African-American leaders of the civil rights movement. Some of these people included W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, and Rosa Parks. The Delany family was put through many incidents caused by the Jim Crow laws. Some of these incidents included them sitting in the Jim Crow cars instead of the Pullman cars. Also, when they lived in North Carolina there was a shoe store that they always went to called Heller's, which was owned by a Jewish man. Because of the Jim Crow laws, a colored person would have to go to the back of the store if they wanted to try on shoes. This book was almost as helpful as reading a history book because people who actually lived during these times wrote most of it.

In evicting a tenant, a landlord has to prove in a court of competent jurisdiction that the tenant breached the contract. Examples of violations include nonpayment of rent, and damages to the premises (Beatty & Samuelson, 2010). Larry would have the onus to prove to court on the preponderance of the evidence that Roger breached the agreement. Upon Larry satisfying the court and the court granting him an eviction order, he must notify Roger. Without a court order, Larry would be going against the law by evicting Roger, and he would be liable to Roger for damages amounting to three months’ rent or actual damages (Sullivan, 2006, p.1297). Larry can try proving in court that Roger breached the rent agreement by damaging the drywall and electrical sockets.

The main lesson of the book is to make an announcement to show how black people were treated in the 1960’s, but the book is trying to tell the reader what it’s like as a black person living in the 1960’s. This is shown throughout the book where he goes to places, such as the ‘ghetto’ and compares it to what a whitemans neighborhood would look like. The way he experiences more racism than expected is how he hears words like, ‘nigger’ around every street

Her death although causes a dreadful shiver in his body but at the same time gives a soothing relief. His action can also be interpreted as a rebel against the injustice caused to the people in the South Side who were ordained to live under extremely deplorable conditions. These people were heavily taxed and were restricted within the boundaries setup by the whites. The donations made by rich white folks like Mr. Dalton in the novel never helped these people because it was ultimately a corporate setup. Wright movingly describes the racially oppressive character of education and law enforcement systems in Chicago.

I learned from this experience that reading through a critical lens really makes me understand how race affects a book in very small ways that we sometimes chose to over look. I learned that there are many racial remarks made in every book that we do not notice because we do not go underneath the surface of texts. Reading a novel through a critical lens is different than just reading a novel because you really try to understand what impact the book has on racial issues, so you go beneath the text and see connections. I would of not got that the Dead Family, especially Macon Dead was racist against his own race. I also would not been able to understand why Macon Dead does not like own his sister, due to that he is embarrassed for who she is.