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

Matthew Desmond

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" We can start with housing, the sturdiest of footholds for economic mobility. A national affordable housing program would be an anti-poverty effort, human capital investment, community improvement plan, and public health initiative all rolled into one. "

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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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" Between 2007 and 2010, the average white family experienced an 11% reduction in wealth, but the average black family lost 31% of its wealth. The average Hispanic family lost 44.7%. "

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" When we think of entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare immediately come to mind. But by any fair standard, the holy trinity of United States social policy should also include the mortgage-interest deduction - an enormous benefit that has also become politically untouchable. "

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" Everywhere else, we are someone else, but at home, we remove our masks. "

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" The poor don't want some small life. They don't want to game the system. They want to contribute, and they want to thrive. But poverty reduces people born for better things. "

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

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

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" The things you're closest to are often the things you know least about. "

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" Poverty is a relationship that involves a lot of folks, rich and poor alike. I was looking for something that brought a lot of different people in a room. Eviction does that, embroils landlords and tenants, lawyers and social workers. "

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" 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. "

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" It takes a good amount of time and money to establish a home. Eviction can erase all that. "

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" I think that we value fairness in this country. We value equal opportunity. Without a stable home, those ideals really fall apart. "

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" 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. "

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" Trying to learn from communities and engage with policy makers and community organizers all across the country is really important to me. "

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" If we take a hard look at what poverty is, its nature, it's not pretty - it's full of trauma. And we're able to accept trauma with certain groups, like with soldiers, for instance - we understand that they face trauma and that trauma can be connected to things like depression or acts of violence later on in life. "

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" A fire in a forest is alive with terror and power. "

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" Young mothers who apply for housing assistance in our nation's capital literally could be grandmothers by the time their application is reviewed. "

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

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" Even growing up the way I did, I was shocked by the level of poverty I saw as a college student. I thought the best way to understand it was to get close to it on the ground level. "

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" A universal voucher program would change the face of poverty in this country. "

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" 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

" Home is where children find safety and security, where we find our identities, where citizenship starts. It usually starts with believing you're part of a community, and that is essential to having a stable home. "

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" Housing being a top-order issue for cities is something that's not trivial. "

Matthew Desmond

" Losing a home sends families to shelters, abandoned houses, and the street. "

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" When you fight fires for a few seasons, you know what to expect. Your heart doesn't race as much as it did. "

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" You do learn how to cope from those who are coping. "

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" Eviction affects old folks and young folks, sick people and able-bodied people, white communities and African-American communities. "

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" The face of the eviction epidemic is moms and kids, especially poor moms from predominantly Latino and African American neighborhoods. "

Matthew Desmond

" I left college with a deep sense that I needed to understand poverty more. "

Matthew Desmond