What followed was a series of migrations to vastly different locations around the city in shelters and various condemned houses that transpired to produce a multitude of unforeseen hardships, driving them into increasing poverty. Arlene was already living in lower-income, yet reasonably stable housing when a simple mischievous incident involving her fourteen-year-old son caused them to be evicted. He also declared that "without stable housing, everything else in a person's life falls apart." The story of Arlene, one of eight families profiled in the book, was used to illustrate this point.
Throughout the evening, he offered observations and posed questions that allowed the auditorium of students, faculty and other Seton Hall Community members to better understand the complexity of how the process of eviction actually pushes people deeper into disadvantage.Īccording to Desmond, it is a case of "inevitability over irresponsibility" that causes an individual's circumstances to worsen when faced with eviction. We're the richest democracy with the worst poverty." He then described the process by which he spent seven months living in a Milwaukee trailer park and a rooming house that allowed him to compile his source material. He opened the program by stating that "America is weird. Desmond spent extensive time living among the families, landlords and members of law enforcement that are profiled in the book in order to give readers an unadulterated, first hand perspective on a complicated problem in the hope of influencing thought towards a solution.ĭesmond termed the research done for the book as a study in inequality.
The program was the culmination of a series of events that included panel and classroom discussions surrounding the issues of poverty, eviction and homelessness that are pervasive across the country, especially in large urban areas.
The College of Education and Human Services was honored to present an evening with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond lecturing on and signing copies of his bestselling book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City on Thursday, March 1.
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