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" I love Milwaukee, the rust belt. It's a very special part of America that's full of promise but also full of pain, where poverty is acute. "

Matthew Desmond

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" There is a reason so many Americans choose to develop their net worth through homeownership: It is a proven wealth builder and savings compeller. "

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" Tenants don't have any right to court-appointed attorneys in civil court, so they're either facing their landlord - or his or her attorney - alone, or they just don't show up. That reflects a severe power imbalance. "

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" Moms that get evicted are depressed and have higher rates of depressive symptoms two years later. That has to affect their interactions with their kids and their sense of happiness. You add all that together, and it's just really obvious to me that eviction is a cause, not just a condition, of poverty. "

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" 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. "

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" Eviction is fundamentally changing the face of poverty. "

Matthew Desmond

" I come from a specific tradition of sociology, which is urban ethnography. "

Matthew Desmond

" 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. "

Matthew Desmond

" My dad was a preacher. "

Matthew Desmond

" I see myself writing in the tradition of urban ethnography and in the tradition of the sociology of poverty. "

Matthew Desmond

" In February 1932, the 'Times' published an account of community resistance to the eviction of three families in the Bronx, observing, 'Probably because of the cold, the crowd numbered only 1,000.' "

Matthew Desmond

" 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

" It's true that eviction affects the young and the old, the sick and the able-bodied. It affects white folks and black folks and Hispanic folks and immigrants. If you spend time in housing court, you see a really diverse array of folks there. "

Matthew Desmond

" 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

" The high cost of housing is crushing poor families and sending them to a state of desperation. "

Matthew Desmond

" I saw people get fired after their eviction. But when I found that if you get evicted, your chances of losing your job increase by 20 percent, that's when it really hit home for me. "

Matthew Desmond

" Children didn't shield families from eviction: They exposed them to it. "

Matthew Desmond

" Poverty is not just a sad accident, but it's also a result of the fact that some people make a lot of money off low-income families and directly contribute to their poverty. "

Matthew Desmond

" 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

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

Matthew Desmond

" 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

" Families who get evicted tend to live in worse housing than they did before, and they live in neighborhoods with higher poverty rates and higher crime rates than they did before. "

Matthew Desmond

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

Matthew Desmond

" 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. "

Matthew Desmond

" All homeowners in America may deduct mortgage interest on their first and second homes. "

Matthew Desmond

" 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

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

Matthew Desmond

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

Matthew Desmond

" Hundreds of data-mining companies sell landlords tenant-screening reports that list past evictions and court filings. "

Matthew Desmond

" 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 meet folks who are funny and really smart and persistent and loving that are confronting this thing we call poverty, which is just a shorthand for this way of life that holds you underwater. And you just wonder what our country would be if we allowed these people to flourish and reach their full potential. "

Matthew Desmond