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" A lot of the stories about urban America tend to be written on the margins. We focus a lot on these big global cities - New York, San Francisco - or we focus on cities that are having the toughest time - Detroit, Newark, Camden. "

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" I have always been really troubled by the amount of poverty in America. Americans are matched in their rich democracy with the depth and expanse of poverty. That's really always unsettled me. "

Matthew Desmond

Rich

America

Poverty

" Eviction is much more an inevitability than a result of irresponsibility. "

Matthew Desmond

Result

Much

" Kids increase people's risk of eviction. "

" When you ask people why they were evicted, the big reason is nonpayment of rent. They can't afford to keep a roof over their heads. Utilities are a big part of the story too, while the third leg on the table is the lack of government help with housing. "

" You lose your home, you lose your community, you lose your school, you lose your stuff. "

" The church should lead on issues of housing and affordability. "

" Fire itself is very beautiful, and there's an attachment to fire that firefighters have. "

" 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. "

" An eviction is an incredibly time consuming and stressful event. "

" I fought fires in the summer, and then I went back and did it again when I went to graduate school. "

" I don't think we can fix poverty without fixing housing, and I don't think we can address housing without understanding landlords. "

" 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. "

" Most Americans think that the typical low - income family lives in public housing or gets housing assistance. The opposite is true. "

" I started a student organization that was basically designed to connect students with homeless folks. We visited them and sometimes brought food, but mostly we were there for swapping stories. "

" When I talk to booksellers, they tell me how hard it is to hand-sell some of my books because I do keep popping around. "

" 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. "

" If you have someone who is paying 88 percent of her income on rent, and we have laws that allow a landlord to evict a tenant who falls behind under those circumstances, eviction becomes an inevitability. "

" Public-sector union organisers have told me about how firefighters, police officers, and nurses can no longer afford to live in the cities they serve and protect. "

Matthew Desmond

Protect

Police

" Payday loans are but one of many financial techniques - from overdraft fees to student loans subsidizing for-profit colleges - specifically designed to pull money from the pockets of the poor. This problem generally goes unrecognized by policy makers. "

" The texture and hardship of poverty and eviction is something that I think left the deepest impression on me, and I hope that I try to convey a little bit of that to the reader. "

" Do we believe housing is a right and that affordable housing is part of what it should mean to be an American? I say yes. "

" Evictions cause job loss. Because it's such a destabilizing, stressful event, they lose their footing in the labor market. It has big impacts on people's health, especially mental health. "

" If poverty persists in America, it is not for lack of resources. We lack something else. "

" If we continue to tolerate this level of poverty in our cities, and go along with eviction as commonplace in poor neighborhoods, it's not for a lack of resources. It will be a lack of something else. "

Matthew Desmond

Will

Lack

" I want my work to influence public conversation, to turn heads, and to bear witness to this problem that's raging in our cities. If journalism helps me with that, I'll draw on journalism... and I'm not going to worry too much if academics get troubled over that distinction. "

Matthew Desmond

Work

Influence

" Poverty was a relationship, I thought, involving poor and rich people alike. "

" The face of America's eviction epidemic is a mom with kids. "

" Most cities don't have a just cause eviction law. Most allow no cause evictions, as well as evictions for nonpayment. "

" Housing is a social issue: how we live and where we live. "

" Healthcare providers have helped me see that decent, safe housing can promote physical and mental wellness; and engaged citizens have shown me the civic potential of stable, vibrant blocks where neighbours know one another by name. "

Matthew Desmond

Potential

Name