Thoughts on Evicted

I finished reading Evicted by Professor Matthew Desmond. As these types of books tend to do, I felt sad by the end. Sad because engaging with this type of discourse always reminds me of how unchecked capitalism is destroying us. It is literally killing us. My key takeaways from the book are as follows:

1. Housing is a human right. It should NOT be a commodity!

2. People hate children. For society and humanity to continue we need them, and everyone pretends to care about them, but then they discriminate against them to the max. In the book, families with multiple children often had issues finding housing.

3. We really need to move past distractions to hold our government accountable.
   

I don’t want to make this super long, so I am going to address my key takeaways as concisely as possible.

1. Housing is a human right. It should not be a commodity:

This book showed me how the exploiters and the exploited need each other: one party for profit and the other for shelter, but because of capitalism, those without access are looked down upon. In this case, access is to capital to purchase their own home, or access to the funds "necessary" for a decent place to live. Since capitalism is about making as much money as possible with minimal spending to increase profits, what happens? People who have some capital and want to get into the real estate business buy up cheap properties, renovate the or flip them as quickly as possible (or they don't renovate at all) and don’t necessarily do a good job, and then they move in the truly desperate or more likely to tolerate conditions of squalor. In Evicted, neighborhoods were racially segregated, however, the experiences of the poor when it came to evictions and housing were very similar. Whether families lived in the Black North Side or the White trailer park, if they were poor, they were prone to similar problems.

Because capitalism and individualism are destroying our society, people are okay with a rich person buying 100 buildings and renting out each crappy unit for high above market value so that they can be millionaires and billionaires....but we have a problem with public housing? I always say the government works for us. Our tax dollars should work for us. If some of us cannot afford housing despite our jobs, why shouldn't our government provide some sort of subsidized housing? If we don't have stable housing then we probably cannot hold down a stable job, and without us little people working our capitalist society would fall. After all, America was built all on the backs of an unpaid enslaved labor force. I think it is difficult for the elites we keep electing into office to imagine a USA where no one is exploited. It's always been the way things are here, but radical change needs to occur. We know it is possible, since Finland has virtually ended homelessness within their borders by adopting a "Housing First" approach. More on that here.

2. People Hate Children

Recently the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, taking away the rights that half of Americans have over their own bodies. Why? People will say it is "for the children," but really they hate kids. And I believe that people hate children because I have the foster system to look at as an example. I have heard the adoption horror stories, with children being treated as objects and cargo, rather than as the human beings they are.

In Evicted, some mothers would omit or lie about how many children would be living with them in the hopes of getting a decent place to live. Since children are children and they do things such as run and play, some apartment communities find them to be a nuisance and do not want them there. Some of us would rather children live in shelters or on the streets just so that we don't have to hear their noises of joy in the evenings, on weekends, and during school holidays. It is so sad to me; children have a right to live too. As a former classroom teacher, I've definitely seen how homelessness/unstable housing effects student learning outcomes. How can a student focus on pi when they do not know where they are going to sleep that night, or if they will be able to shower or change their clothing?

I know that some people do not want children, or proudly state that they "hate children." To hate children is to hate yourself. We ALL started off as babies and children. I believe one can be childfree and still respect the rights and autonomy of humans of all ages. Advocate for communities to allow children to live there, especially if it isn't some sort of age-restricted area for retirees. From what I read and what I see, people find children to be a nuisance simply for existing. It is messed up.

3. We really need to move past distractions to hold our government accountable

What are the distractions? Racism, sexism, ageism, etc. All the "isms" are a distraction! Make no mistake, they matter! However, I truly believe if people united based on working and social classes for example, real change can occur. Instead, people who do not know where they are going to shelter their children still have time to be racist. In Evicted, poor white people still found the time to be racist and prejudiced towards black people. They were prejudiced towards the Hispanic community too, but would rather live there than in the Black communities. And because they were white, despite their eviction history, several children, and lack of employment, Hispanic landlords rented to them. That was some real white privilege.

Since I moved to the Midwest, I lived in predominantly white middle class areas. It was coincidence really. I just moved to the places in the areas I liked best. I always check the racial demographics of an area, but it has never stopped me from moving to a place. I am theorizing that as people move up the social ladder, they care more about the conditions, location and convenience of a place rather than about the race of people in the area. I admit this can be dangerous for non-white people though, because the "isms" can get us killed.

I currently lived in a mixed (black and white) neighborhood; I would describe it as poor/working class. It is safe and quiet, with more people renting than owning, though a good number of people own their homes according to internet statistics. When my husband and I moved in, the neighbors across the street were super excited and a woman literally exclaimed "They look like us." It was actually pretty hilarious because I felt her. There is definitely comfort in community and race, along with gender and sexuality is how a lot of us build and feel community. It would be great if we could also build community based on need and mutual understanding.

Most Americans are not rich. According to the US Census Bureau, the median household income in 2022 was $74,580. That is for the whole house; not per person. That means so many people live on so much less. I am from NYC....that number is about enough for one person to live on their own in peace, likely from paycheck to paycheck. I imagine if every household that makes $74,580 could pool their voting power together and demand some equitable Housing First legislation, we could really start to get somewhere. I'm sorry, but there is too much money in the USA for people to be living on the streets!

The "isms" matter; I am not saying they do not. They need to be eradicated, but multiple things can be true at the same time. We can work to eradicate the isms and end homelessness at the same time. We do this by prioritizing equity and safe and clean housing first. Equity is different from equality. Here are some visuals:

Image credits: Interaction Institute for Social Change (Image 1) and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Image 2)

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A Mini Rant & Summary (Feel free to skip this section, but if you like a good rant, read on)

So the book followed a couple of different families and their journey to eviction, during eviction, and after eviction. Unless I missed something, all of the individuals followed were either black or white. Black families stuck to the black areas due to discrimination; people unwilling to rent to them because of their race, history, or otherwise. White families with similar history or even am eviction record had more flexibility; Hispanic landlords were willing to rent to them (maybe due to their whiteness), and to some white people it was better to be around them than black people. Also, there was this one particular white man who kept using the n word to refer to black people, and this is despite him having two biracial black stepdaughters. He treated them terribly, meanwhile their mother could only hope they weren’t damaged long term by the verbal abuse. I know that they were though. Like many black children that have to go through verbal and mental abuse at the hands of racists.

This is probably obvious, but I am an anti capitalist for sure. To me the opposite of capitalism is simply NOT capitalism. I’m sorry, but the USA has to do better. As a black person, I don’t believe in the myth of meritocracy. I don’t believe in bootstrapping either. Some people are born with a lot and some are born with nothing. That isn't up to any of us. The difference between our lives is that none of us choose whether we are born, but we do choose to live or die. And capitalism even tries to take that away from us. Because if someone tries to die by suicide, we try to save them right? Even though they clearly have told us they’re ready to go, we pump their stomachs of pills trying to get them to stay, all because we need people to fill the capitalist machine. How is that fair? I always get crazy looks from people when I say I believe people have the right to die…. But I really believe it. What’s nuts that we treat suicidal people as weirdos, like their programming is broken because they want to die, but my question is….would you want to keep living at the bottom of society, mistreated, abused, homeless? Wouldn’t you get on drugs to cope, or just die to not feel anything? To me, death is what makes sense in that instance, not life. So I get it.

Having worked in public education for a while, I know how people think the problem is “poverty.” But poverty isn’t the problem; capitalism is. Because without capitalism, the conditions that permit poverty to persist would not be in place. In a staff meeting at my old job earlier this year, a guest speaker came in and asked what the problem is and I kept saying capitalism and none of my colleagues were guessing correctly and he finally said “poverty.” And I immediately retorted "which is because of capitalism." If we continue to only look at poverty we won’t ever solve the real problems. Grants and temporary shelters and such are Band-Aids and they work for a season. I want solutions that work long term.

Our country’s leaders are usually wealthy, rich, or well off and too far removed from societal ills. There is so much that can easily be done, but it isn’t done because unfortunately people are too individualistic, and I don’t believe that’s how we humans are meant to exist. Since none of us asked to be born, some of us are born with a little and some a lot, and many of us were used as an unpaid slave labor force for centuries and thus have no generational wealth, the LEAST we can do is provide an equitable Universal Basic Income, affordable housing, and rules that prevent the rich from exploiting the poor. Because let me tell you, it is expensive to be poor! We see this even in the credit score system, right? Don’t the poor get punished with higher interest rates due to bad credit? Which is backwards af….. the wealthy can afford high interest and the poor cannot.

Unfortunately we have accepted this in America but it is unacceptable and needs to change.

Conclusions

I know I didn't put any very specific details and page numbers and such in this post, but that is because I want you to go and read Evicted because it is necessary. I stumbled across it in half priced books, but I can’t believe it wasn’t assigned to me in any of my political science or anthropology classes down in undergrad. If I ever became a Social Sciences professor I’d put it on there. This was my first time reading a book cover to cover, including acknowledgements and everything. I feel so angry yet inspired, and this reading reaffirmed my desire to continue to participate in community based work and efforts.

Remember, the book is called Evicted by Matthew Desmond.