10 books to read after you’ve read ‘Evicted’
Matthew Desmond’s “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City,” now in paperback, continues to resonate in Milwaukee, the community where Desmond studied the relationship between eviction and poverty.
Among the many findings of the Milwaukee Area Renters Study that Desmond designed and supervised was this stunning conclusion: Among Milwaukee renters, more than one in five black women report having been evicted in their adult life. His book makes this research come alive through the stories of eight Milwaukee families, black and white, and two landlords involved with them.
Desmond, a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant winner and now a professor of sociology at Princeton, has opened the eyes of many to how eviction contributes to the thorny cluster of urban poverty. For example, it’s much harder to land a job without a reliable address.
Daniel Goldin, owner of Milwaukee’s Boswell Books, recently gave a talk on what to read after “Evicted,” following up on its concerns with homelessness, poverty and related issues. Inspired by his approach, I’ve compiled this list of 10 possible books to read after “Evicted,” combining suggestions from Goldin and from Desmond (via emaiI) with my own picks.
“Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America” (2009), by Beryl Satter. Drawing on the story of her father, a crusading attorney, Satter details how how slumlords and government itself kept blacks out of white Chicago neighborhoods while also exploiting them financially.
“How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York” (1890), by Jacob Riis. Riis’ photojournalism documented how dangerous living conditions were in New York’s slums and sweatshops, leading to many reforms.
“Janesville: An American Story”
(2017), by Amy Goldstein. Washington Post reporter Goldstein chronicles how this Wisconsin community has tried to bounce back after the 2008 closing of General Motors’ Janesville Assembly Plant. The book’s heroes include a school district social worker trying to create a homeless shelter for teens, with nearly 1,000 teens in 2015 having no fixed place to sleep and 170 of those students completely on their own, with no responsible adult looking out for them.
“Live and Let Live: Diversity, Conflict, and Community in an Integrated Neighborhood” (2017), by Evelyn M. Perry. Sociologist Perry lived in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood for three years, studying it to understand how residents of a racially and economically mixed neighborhood live together. To oversimplify her conclusions, she found that neighbors negotiating small conflicts over differences is what makes Riverwest work.
“Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America” (2001), by Barbara Ehrenreich. In a deliberate experiment, journalist Ehrenreich tried to live on low-wage work such as waitress and hotel maid; the struggle to find affordable housing while doing so is a key element of her story. (Picador Modern Classics has republished her provocative book in an attractive small edition.)
“Nomad land: Surviving America in the 21st Century” (2017), by Jessica Bruder. People, many of them seniors, who’ve lost their homes through job loss, debt or personal problems, live in their cars or cheap campers as they move around the country, finding seasonal work.
“Not a Crime to Be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America” (2017), by Peter Edelman. Georgetown law professor Edelman argues that legal system fines and fees for minor infractions end up putting poor people in jail, making it even harder for them to escape poverty.
“Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx” (2003), by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. For more than a decade LeBlanc followed the lives of two poor young women in the Bronx and the men in their lives, including a brutal heroin dealer. Public housing, prison, addiction and other hot-button subjects wind through her narrative.
“The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy” (1987), by William Julius Wilson. “Wilson is particularly insightful in establishing a connection between the declining economic fortunes of young black men and the explosive growth in the number of black families headed by single women,” Robert Greenstein wrote in his review of the sociologist’s landmark book.
“$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America” (2015), by Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer. Sociologists Edin and Shaefer report the heartbreaking strategies poor people in Cleveland, Chicago and Mississippi use to survive with almost no cash.