Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Between 2009 and 2011 1 in 8 Milwaukee renters faced involuntary displacement. And these figures are consistent across the US for cities of similar size. Matthew Desmond embedded in a trailer park and an inner city tenement to discover the devastating truth of what happens when individuals spend over 70% of their income on housing. With the spectre of eviction hanging over their heads renters are kept quiet and fail to report abuse or horrendous living conditions. It diminishes their self-worth. They can lose their possessions, their job, their benefits and their children. And each successive eviction digs the hole ever deeper.

Matthew follows the lives of several individuals living at the bottom rung of society as they try to claw their way out from underneath a system that profits on their pain. An incredible work of ethnography Desmond continues to stay involved with his Just ShelterJust initiative.