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" Why young men from the country become firefighters is hard to explain to people who are not from the country. For most of us, it's not about the rush, which fades with time, or the paycheck. We could earn more working for the railroad or a car dealership. I figure it's about the land. "

Matthew Desmond

Time

Car

Country

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

" 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

" Since the publication of 'Evicted', I have had countless conversations with concerned families across America. Teachers in under-served communities have told me about high classroom turnover rates, which hinder students' ability to reach their full potential. "

Matthew Desmond

Potential

America

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" The standard of 'affordable' housing is that which costs roughly 30 percent or less of a family's income. Because of rising housing costs and stagnant wages, slightly more than half of all poor renting families in the country spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing costs, and at least one in four spends more than 70 percent. "

Matthew Desmond

Country

Poor

" 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

" 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. "

" If you just catalog the effects eviction has on people's live and neighborhoods, it's pretty troubling. "

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

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

Matthew Desmond

Result

Much

" Eviction riots erupted during the Depression, though the number of poor families who faced eviction each year was a fraction of what it is today. "

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

" 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. "

" It is very rare in the life of an intellectual to see your support network show up all at once. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" When I was confronted with just the bare facts of poverty and inequality in America, it always disturbed and confused me. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" Kids increase people's risk of eviction. "

" I see myself working in the tradition of sociology and journalism that tries to bear witness to poverty. "