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" A fire in a forest is alive with terror and power. "
Matthew Desmond
Forest
Power
Fire
Related Quotes:
" I met a landlord who will pay you to move at the end of the week and let you use his van. That's a really nice kind of eviction. I met a landlord who will take your door off. There are 101 ways to move a family out. "
Matthew Desmond
End
Nice
Week
" A lot of us who grew up in the country, hunting and fishing, being very familiar with the woods and dirt roads, have the skill set you need to fight fire. "
Matthew Desmond
Fishing
You
Woods
" Eviction is fundamentally changing the face of poverty. "
Matthew Desmond
Face
Poverty
Fundamentally
" If you look at the American Household Survey, the last time we did that in 2013, renters in over 2.8 million homes thought they would be evicted soon. "
Matthew Desmond
You
Last
Look
" When I was confronted with just the bare facts of poverty and inequality in America, it always disturbed and confused me. "
Matthew Desmond
Facts
America
Inequality
" I see myself working in the tradition of sociology and journalism that tries to bear witness to poverty. "
Matthew Desmond
Poverty
Journalism
Tradition
" It takes a good amount of time and money to establish a home. Eviction can erase all that. "
Matthew Desmond
Erase
Time
Takes
" The face of the eviction epidemic is moms and kids, especially poor moms from predominantly Latino and African American neighborhoods. "
Matthew Desmond
Moms
American
Face
" When you meet people who are spending 70, 80 percent of their income on rent, eviction becomes much more of an inevitability than the result of personal irresponsibility. "
Matthew Desmond
Meet
Result
You
" Most cities don't have a just cause eviction law. Most allow no cause evictions, as well as evictions for nonpayment. "
Matthew Desmond
Law
Well
Most
" Evictions used to be rare in this country. They used to draw crowds. There are scenes in literature where you can come upon an eviction - like, in 'Invisible Man' there's the famous eviction scene in Harlem, and people are gathered around, and they move the family back in. "
Matthew Desmond
Family
You
Man
" These days, there are sheriff squads whose full-time job is to carry out eviction and foreclosure orders. There are moving companies specializing in evictions, their crews working all day, every weekday. "
Matthew Desmond
Working
Carry
Day
" If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women. Poor black men were locked up. Poor black women were locked out. "
Matthew Desmond
Incarceration
Men
Poor
" You can get out of maintaining property at code if the family is behind on rent. "
Matthew Desmond
Out
Rent
Behind
" Kids increase people's risk of eviction. "
Matthew Desmond
Increase
Kids
People
" Eviction affects old folks and young folks, sick people and able-bodied people, white communities and African-American communities. "
Matthew Desmond
Old
Affects
Young
" Arguably, the families most at need of housing assistance are systematically denied it because they're stamped with an eviction record. Moms and kids are bearing the brunt of those consequences. "
Matthew Desmond
Because
Consequences
Housing
" Eviction comes with a record, too, and just as a criminal record can bar you from receiving certain benefits or getting a foothold in the labor market, the record of eviction comes with consequences as well. It can bar you from getting good housing in a good neighborhood. "
Matthew Desmond
Good
Consequences
Housing
" An eviction is an incredibly time consuming and stressful event. "
Matthew Desmond
Event
Time
Stressful
" Without the ability to plant roots and invest in your community or your school - because you're paying 60, 70, 80 percent of your income to rent - and eviction becomes something of an inevitability to you, it denies you certain freedoms. "
Matthew Desmond
Plant
Community
You
" Everywhere else, we are someone else, but at home, we remove our masks. "
Matthew Desmond
Home
Someone
Remove
" Families, when they get a housing voucher, they move a lot less. They move into better neighborhoods. Their kids go to the same school more consistently. Their kids have more food, and they get stronger. There are massive returns. "
Matthew Desmond
Food
Stronger
School
" The cost of evictions varies a lot, but it could be for landlords an expensive process as well. Among the costs for landlords as well is the emotional costs of an eviction. "
Matthew Desmond
Costs
Well
Process
" Eviction causes loss. You lose not only your home but also your possessions, which are thrown onto the curb or taken by movers, and often you can't keep up payments. "
Matthew Desmond
Lose
Loss
Only
" A community that sees so clearly its own disadvantage or its own hardships also has a harder time seeing its potential: its ability to work together to change the community and change their lives. "
Matthew Desmond
Community
Time
Together
" A lot flows from the question: Is having decent, stable housing part of what it means to live in this country? And I think we should answer 'yes.' "
Matthew Desmond
Yes
Live
Think
" When I left Milwaukee, and I had all these stories. I felt so responsible for people. It's a heck of a thing to do, to try to write someone's story. "
Matthew Desmond
People
Responsible
Someone
" Since evictions go through court, it has a record that comes with it, and many landlords that I spend time with use that as a big screening mechanism. And that's really the reason, we think, families are pushed into worse housing and worse neighborhoods after their evictions. "
Matthew Desmond
Time
Think
Reason
" I teach at Harvard, and focusing on understanding this problem on a national level is a big priority of mine right now - where evictions are going up and down, what cities are actually instituting policies that work, what housing insecurity is doing to our cities, neighbourhoods, our kids. "
Matthew Desmond
Work
Understanding
Problem
" Eviction is much more an inevitability than a result of irresponsibility. "
Matthew Desmond
Result
Much
More