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.
Matthew DesmondRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Eviction leads families to worse living conditions and more dangerous neighborhoods.
This quote highlights the harsh realities faced by families who are evicted from their homes. It emphasizes that eviction not only displaces families but often results in them being forced into poorer quality housing and neighborhoods that are plagued by higher poverty and crime, exacerbating their struggles and diminishing their quality of life.
Themes
EvictionHousingPovertyCrimeFamilyNeighborhood
In practice
Example use cases
During a community meeting discussing housing policies, you might use this quote to illustrate the impact of eviction on families.
More from Matthew Desmond
All quotes →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.
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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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When I was confronted with just the bare facts of poverty and inequality in America, it always disturbed and confused me.
Matthew DesmondRead
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 DesmondRead
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.
Matthew DesmondRead
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