Clif Hostetler's Reviews > Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

This book describes the misery of living at the ragged edge of homelessness. The first 80 percent of the book follows in detail the experiences of eight low-income families (including both black and white) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The final part of the book is a long Epilogue that provides a concluding summary and a description of how the author collected his information and data by living among the subjects he writes about.

The reading experience of exposure to the stories in this book is disturbing. It includes incident after incident where people are facing miserable dilemmas in their efforts to find housing. It was a relief to reach the Epilogue at the end where I knew there weren't going to be additional hard luck stories to read.

Evictions are a growing problem that is creeping up the economic ladder. The 2008 housing crash and subsequent foreclosures turned millions of former homeowners into renters, which kept rents rising even as incomes fell. (view spoiler)[Between 2001 and 2014, real rents rose 7 percent while renters' incomes fell 9 percent. As a result, the number of households paying more than 30 percent of their income for shelter rose to a record 21.3 million—about one in six nationwide. And the number paying more than half their incomes rose even faster, to 11.4 million, from 7.5 million, Among them, 30 percent included a full-time worker. (hide spoiler)]

The number of low income housing units has not increased to match this demand. Consequently, the only market force preventing rental rates from rising even higher is the ability of renters to pay. The competition for rental space has forced a growing number of low-income households to pay crushing shares of their income for shelter. (view spoiler)[ The government says that rent and utilities are affordable if they consume no more than 30 percent of the household's income. Analyzing census data, this book finds that the majority of poor households pay over 50 percent of their income for shelter and more than a quarter pay over 70 percent. Among the tenants in housing court, a third spend at least 80 percent. The squeeze is increasing higher incomes as well. Even among households earning between $30,000 and $45,000 a year—clerks, cooks, or low-level medical technicians, for example—nearly half pay more than the 30 percent the government says they can afford. Of them, 10 percent devote at least half their income to shelter. (hide spoiler)]

Another fact brought out by this book is that eviction isn't just another hardship, but rather a forced entry onto a much harder path with harsh consequences—"a cause, not just a condition, of poverty." In other words, once a renter has an eviction on their records, many landlords will be reluctant to rent to them. Even the government low income rental program—which has long waiting lists—consider past evictions to be a negative mark on their record.

Another sad fact is that the frequency of evictions falls disproportionately on poor women. They are more likely to have dependent children under their care which can lead to problems leading to eviction. Also, police calls due to physical abuse inflicted by boyfriends leads to some evictions because police calls are considered to be a undesirable nuisance.

In Milwaukee's poorest black neighborhoods, eviction had become commonplace—especially for women. In those neighborhoods, 1 female renter in 17 was evicted through the court system each year, which was twice as often as men from those neighborhoods and nine times as often as women from the city's poorest white areas. Women from black neighborhoods made up 9 percent of Milwaukee's population and 30 percent of its evicted tenants.

If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women. Poor black men were locked up. Poor black women were locked out. [underline emphasis is mine]

Among the individuals interviewed extensively by the author was an entrepreneurial African American woman who is the owner of numerous rental units and is one of the landlords issuing eviction orders. By including the story of a landlord in the book the author has included the other side of the story. Landlords need to maximize the amount of income from their rental units in order pay their bank loans. But one of the points of the book is that there is plenty of money to be made in renting to impoverished tenants. Maintenance and upkeep doesn't cost much because poor people can't complain for fear of eviction.

Tenants who fell behind either had to accept unpleasant, degrading, and sometimes dangerous housing conditions or be evicted.

Evictions have negative consequences for whole neighborhoods, including those remaining who have not been evicted. Evictions destabilize neighborhoods. The more people come and go, the less chance there is for cohesion and neighborhoods become less safe. The effects are enduring, as measured by incidents like hunger or lost utilities.

The year after eviction, families experience 20 percent higher levels of material hardships than similar families who were not evicted.

The availability of affordable rental units has not kept pace with the rise in demand. In 1970, the US had nearly a million more affordable units than poor households, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Two decades later, the situation had reversed—there were five million more poor households than affordable units.

In the Epilogue the author makes the case for a universal voucher program. Such a voucher program would need to include some sort of rental rate controls, otherwise increased availability of money would simply increase rental rates. But rental rates would need to be sufficient to make construction of affordable units financially viable. The author believes a comprehensive universal voucher program would change the face of poverty in this country.

Evictions would plummet and become rare occurrences. Homelessness would almost disappear. Families would immediately feel the income gains and be able to buy enough food, invest in themselves and their children through schooling or job training, and start modest savings.

Regarding the present situation in the United States, the author has the following comment:

No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become.

UPDATE
The following link is to some updating notes on this book from the author:
https://www.goodreads.com/notes/40004...