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" 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. "

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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. "

Matthew Desmond

Work

Understanding

Problem

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

" Home is the center of life. It's the wellspring of personhood. It's where we say we're ourselves. "

" Eviction is part of a business model at the bottom of the market. "

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

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

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

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

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

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

" Just strictly from a business standpoint, kids are a liability to landlords, and they actually provoke evictions. "

" Between 2009 and 2011, more than one in eight Milwaukee renters were displaced involuntarily, whether by formal or informal eviction, landlord foreclosure, or building condemnation. "

Matthew Desmond

Than

Building

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

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

" 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

" Just as incarceration has come to define the lives of low-income black men, eviction is defining the lives of low-income black women. "

" No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become. "

" 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. "

" Poor families are living above their means, in apartments they cannot afford. The thing is, those apartments are already at the bottom of the market. "

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

Matthew Desmond

Poverty

Understand

" We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty. "

" 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 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. "

" There are moving companies specializing in evictions, their crews working all day, every weekday. "

" There were evictions that I saw that I know I'll never forget. In one case, the sheriff and the movers came up on a house full of children. The mom had passed away, and the children had just gone on living there. And the sheriff executed the eviction order - moved the kids' stuff out on the street on a cold, rainy day. "