The poverty industry: the exploitation of America’s most vulnerable citizens

Abstract

regarding Milwaukee renters. Desmond describes how economic and psychological vulnerability, material hardship, and community disorganization are all interlocking aspects of housing instability, whose cumulative effects are tremendous. The seemingly perpetual stress of finding housing, which can be especially protracted for people with eviction records, can lead to hopelessness, lethargy, and depression. The people Desmond follows struggle to procure and keep employment even as their housing costs eat up as much as 80 to 90% of their monthly income. They fall further behind on debts they are already unable to pay, and often government aid and access to social services are severed. Children are especially vulnerable, as they bounce from school to school, falling ever further behind. Eviction is more than just a loss of a home; it is a loss of neighbors, friends, and vital social support networks. People forced to move in and out of homes are denied opportunities to invest in the collective good of a community. The people in Desmond’s research are in constant motion; they move in quickly and leave equally quickly. They inherit what was left behind by previous tenants even as they themselves often leave possessions when they are forcefully removed from their homes. Sometimes what they leave is refuse and physical dilapidation; equally often, it is furniture and children’s toys. These people are like fugitives from homelessness, moving from place to place, leaving a trail of personal possessions and hardship, dislocated from one squalid domicile after another. A unique aspect of this research is Desmond’s candid and uncensored access to landlords. Acting as gatekeepers to the low-income housing market, landlords have considerable power over the fates of the urban poor and their communities. As Desmond explains, eviction is one of many strategies employed by landlords to shape the ‘geography of advantage and disadvantage that characterized the modern American city’ (89). Through screening processes, evictions, and control over rents, landlords effectively funnel low-income renters into isolated communities where struggling schools, high crime, urban blight, and other elements of structural disadvantage are the norm. Desmond makes a compelling argument for a universal housing voucher program as a solution to the exploitation that is endemic to private housing markets available to the urban poor. He suggests that such a program, through which renters would pay 30% of their income for housing, would virtually eliminate evictions in this country. Families would have more income available for food and other necessities as well as for investments in education and job training. The combination of rigorous research and important policy recommendations makes this work valuable to a wide audience; it is a must-read.