Eviction And Poverty

In the year 2015, it was estimated that 2.7 million faced eviction in the United States. In addition, More than 20 million renters, over half of all renters in the U.S., spent at least 30 percent of their income on rent making them cost burdened (Marr, 2017). These are merely estimates since there is no national database on evictions currently (Marr, 2017). Matthew Desmond’s Evicted took on the challenge of conveying this epidemic to the American public. Evicted gets to the heart of the housing crisis and shows the reader the cycle of poverty that evictions create. Desmond teaches the reader that evictions are not just a symptom of poverty but also a cause. Evictions weigh on a person and throw already vulnerable people into overwhelming anxiety, and increasing the likelihood of further bad choices, joblessness, and depression. I went to the courthouse on October 23, 2017. Upon entering I immediately realized that I had no clue where I was going and felt overwhelmed. Luckily the …show more content…
This statistic is extremely surprising as many would like to believe that having a child would mean a landlord would want to keep a the child in a stable environment. However, even when the tenant has children living in the rental unit there are no breaks given during the eviction process. Additionally, children who live in poverty are often victimized for the smallest of reasons. Desmond gives the account of Arleen’s sons who had a snowball fight that ended with him hitting a passing car. The police then follow the boy to Arleen’s home and the landlord, now believing the family to be trouble, tells Arleen she can have her deposit back if she moves her and her children out within a month. This anecdote illustrates the concept of landlords viewing children as trouble makers, meaning they would choose a tenant without children over those that have