"Evicted" Book Review
The process of social marginality refers to certain people being excluded from social fabric and treated as “outsiders” or two those who are on the transition state of blending into social matrix. Poverty, drug abuse, crime and many more can be attributed to the marginalized. Realization of existence of these problems is the first step for the American society to start making changes. Economic exploitation and extreme poverty leaves residents of poor areas on the edge of existence, making them literally fight for survival.
Rental market nowadays is the key problem of marginalized in the most of big cities. The shift of US housing policy from building housing for poor to providing limited “vouchers” to be used with rental providers. In the book “Evicted”, Desmond uncovers the disastrous results of this policy. The problem uniting the eight heroes of the book is relatively close – inability to pay rent.
For most of these residents paying rent and taxes is an unsustainable burden. In fact, their wage basically turns into rent payment leaving them with $2 amount of money to spend daily. The harsh conditions of tenants can be explained by a simple fact of their living: “If a tenant did not pay $500, her landlord lost $500.” This creates all possibilities for the landlords to demand payment with the legal interest.
Therefore, the most vulnerable population of American cities appears in a condition of virtually being haunted for money they barely have. In the Milwaukee alone, 16,000 adults and children are evicted annually. Desmond found out that for landlords “it was cheaper to deal with the expense of eviction than to maintain their properties.” This fact explains the unwillingness of landlords to deal with those who delay the payment. The risk for such people to find themselves in the middle of the street after only a several day delay is extremely high. Racism occurs to be especially noticeable under such conditions. According to Desmond’s research, black women with children had the most trouble in finding the place to rent and also appeared to be among the ones most often hit by evictions. Surprisingly, having children does not mild landlords, but makes evictions even more possible.
Desmond claims that stable shelter for every citizen is the first thing government’s policies should be aimed at. His position is that “Eviction is a cause, not just a condition, of poverty.” By disrupting the life of individuals, the whole families and communities are being destabilized. He suggests expanding housing programs for the low-income population so that these people would be able to afford living without giving away most of their monthly income. The author believes that implementation of such programs will help not only to beat the poverty but to raise the nation’s well-being.
In conclusion, housing problems is the signal of economic system instability and social inequality. These issues can be battled only if dealing with them on the national level. Unfortunately, there are very limited number …
