Chicks On Lit discussion
Archive 08-19 GR Discussions
>
"Evicted" by Matthew Desmond - our March Group Read
Reading ScheduleMarch 1 Begin reading Part 1 RENT
March 8 Discuss Part 1 and begin reading Part 2 OUT
March 15 Discuss Part 2 and begin reading Part 3 AFTER
March 22 Discuss entire book
I just put a hold on it at the library. My job is helping mentally ill adults, most of whom are on Social Security or DSS benefits find housing. It's incredibly hard and frustrating for people who are on limited income to get a chance to make a better life for themselves.
Jennifer, I bet your experience will add a great deal to this book discussion as you will have the professional experience to validate or dispute the claims this author makes.
I'm curious to see what he has to say. I work in an interesting town, Ithaca, we have a lot of students from 2 colleges and their professors, but then we also have excellent social services, so we do attract a lot of people who need them. It makes for very interesting (and often expensive) housing opportunities.
Bonus, I can't afford to live there, we bought a house for cheaper monthly payments than we could pay to rent, but it means I have a half hour commute.
I may try and join in on this one. Its been on my Kindle. I don't know if I can keep up, but I'll try. (Grades due this week, musical in two weeks.) Knowing your background, I would love to hear what you have to add to this conversation Jennifer.
I think that is true in many urban areas where the demand for housing is greater than the supply. But, if you can't afford a car or, like your clients, may not be able to get a driver's licence, you don't have the option of living in a less expensive housing market.
I'll try to participate in this group also. Jennifer, I too work with adults with mental illness and in poverty and housing is such a challenge. I grew up in Wisconsin so it's interesting that it is set in Milwaukee.
Great to have you join this discussion, Terri.
Excellent, Terri, we'll have to see how our clients' situations compare as we discuss the book!I'm going to pick up my copy today after work.
Hi Everyone, I started reading it today. I'm so excited to have found a group reading this sort of book! I 'bang on' about these topics to my poor (bored? friends & relatives). I have worked in social services and public policy in the US, and continue in these fields here in England. We are also having lots of cuts to all social services in the UK and there has been a terrible increase in homelessness here among other problems.
Glad to have you joining us Sara. It will be interesting to get all of you, Jennifer and Terri's perspectives from a professional standpoint. I don't work in social services, but as a teacher, I can see some of these issues with families in our building. The transience makes it difficult to get a solid educational foundation for some of these kids. And the behavior problems are proportionately more evident in those families that we know are struggling with finances, single parenthood, overwhelm with other siblings who have severe/profound disabilities, or the family's own dysfunctional mental health. Which is why I am of course a big supporter of public schools, why I fear voucher systems will only make the class system divides bigger and why I am sad to be held accountable for student's success or failure when there are so many factors out of my control. End of rant.
Glad you are with us Sara. I finished the first section, the part that we begin discussing on March 8. I am really looking forward to everyone's reactions and comments.
Mod
Hi Nancy, Nice to meet you! Yes, you are in the trenches and a soldier for good. I too am a big believer in Public Education (as in paid by the government because 'public school' over here in the UK means private...sigh...don't ask, I don't know!). And YES, I know too well from friends who were career teachers, how the parents/society seems to think teachers can (or as though they even should) fix all that needs fixing with the kids, when their problems are often the result of serious, longstanding, complex situations in their home environments. In addition, educating our nation's children is obviously not a real priority for the government, eh? OK, end of my rant! This promises to be good fun with all you guys!
Agree with everything you said - definitely the LONGSTANDING part - sadly. I have been to England twice - there are still some of my mother's side of the family there - Birmingham and London areas. Its been years though. They don't stay in touch, at least not nearly as well as my Dad's Swedish side of the family. We are in contact on FB on an almost daily basis. My one British cousin, who is a bit older than I am, was a teacher. I don't know - thinking she is retired now. Neither do I remember the stuff about public versus private, but she didn't discuss her job much.
Hi Nancy, This would jive with my experience of much of the British culture--not all that communicative. Although, to be fair, I have a number of non-communicative relatives. The down-right weird ones are mostly gone, now! :) How interesting to have roots in different places. Although I've been seeing some great videos on YouTube (where else?) where people are genuinely surprised to learn just how mixed their genetic heritage is!
The discussion of Part 1 of Evicted begins today!What were your reactions to the stories presented in this section. Did these stories match your opinion of those living with low income housing? Was there anything that surprised you? For those of you who work in social services helping low income individuals find housing, did it match your experience? Was there anything in this section that surprised you? anything that conflicted with your experience of low income rental units and those who occupy them?
I was very moved by all the stories. I moved from the US to the UK in 2004, but I remember folks with all sorts of problems when they fell out of the range of getting help. It matches with what I know. It has been a big wake-up to be in a socialist democracy, here in Britain, where there are much better nets, and a much better 'Benefits' system. I volunteer with an organization called 'Citizens Advice' where we deal with a lot of housing issues. And even in the little I've learned so far, I can see it is WAY better in the UK. In fact the Govt has been taken to court for not providing subsidized housing for people in their own neighborhoods, rather than moving them to an adjacent area! There is a housing crisis here, with not enough in the lower income ranges, and a significant upsurge in homelessness--most of whom are homeless because of changed family circumstances, studies find.
I was also moved by the stories. It made me wonder about the presumptions I have. If I were a landlord, would I want to rent to someone with multiple evictions on their record? When the land lady spoke of the damage done to her property by leaving tennants such as socks being stuffed into a drain before leaving the water run full blast, I thought of a friend of mine who has rental properties. She is living hand-to-mouth. When her low income tenants do not pay rent, she is out grocery money or the payment for her car. She has evicted numerous tenants and reported an apartment badly damaged in the aftermath. In fact she has reported great damage from tenants who left voluntarily. Yet, the people in this section were not malicious, just frustrated, struggling, desperate, frightened. I wanted to help each and every one of them. But, I knew their story. I left this section wondering how tenants and landlords could hear each other's story and maybe move beyond fear and total self interest.Sara, I wish our country would have a much better safety net for those in poverty. There are more resources when it is a government program, so people can be given a bit more time to pay up, could be offered subsidies to enable them to afford rent. A landlord who needs that rent money to pay their own bills can't be as forgiving. But, the current political climate is going in the opposite direction. I don't know how those living with food and housing insecurity will do it if things continue as they are going here.
Hi Irene, Yes, of course -- being a landlord, I think can be a real pain in the butt! I owned an apartment once, but then moved out and rented it out, giving me the smallest taste of this. My great aunt and uncle used to manage apartments for other people as part of their real estate business, and I often heard her fed up when she was older and still trying to run the business. A phone call would come in the middle of dinner and I'd hear her answer, 'Well, your toilet won't flush? It's 8 o'clock on a Saturday night--what do you want me to do about it?'.
I did get from reading this section that these various landlords, with all their quirks and limitations, are really providing a social service as well.
Yes, things certainly are going in the other direction in the US at this time. Just read quite an article from the NYT about the people pulling the strings behind Trump (Bannon, Sessions and even Nigel Farage buddying up with them in 2015). It's called 'The Department of Justification' (I can send the link if you'd like it.)
Did that article run in the print version of the NYT? If so, what was the date?I had ambivalent feelings about the landlords highlighted in this section. One moment the one lady is bringing groceries to the new family, the next moment she is renigging on her commitment to fix the window with a hole in it or make other necessary repairs. Allowing that legless man to clean out the filthy basement, then only credit him $50 or allow him to paint the room, then not credit him anything because she did not like the quality of the job seemed unethical. It felt as if the landlords were taking advantage of these folks who had no options. If they called the Board of Health, they kicked them out on a technicality. These families had no recourse. I can not imagine feeling that powerless.
I'm always too ready to see all sides. Yes, I agree, these landlords made decisions I wouldn't have--like only paying that legless guy $50 for such awful work and so on. But I also bet the paint job was pretty awful. Paint slopped on the brown baseboards. And they didn't know to fill the holes first. She should have realized they weren't going to do a skilled job. But they also take renters no one else will, if I remember correctly. Waiving deposits and so on. I think people also get fed up--the landlords. Fair or not, and they are not making enough to have much cushion when money doesn't come it. That was my understanding. Yes, the feelings of powerlessness I'm sure are awful. And feed into depression, as they described in some folks too. It's also VERY hard to scratch your way out of such circumstances, especially with minimal education. I read an article yonks ago about a man doing unskilled labour used to be able to support a wife AND children. But now--no way. So that folks without higher education are really in a mess economically. And of course, who doesn't know college grads who can only get entry level work nowadays, too?
Yes, as I wrote in my earlier post, I kept thinking of my friend who has rentals and the horror stories she tells me about low income renters. For every landlord trying to do the right thing, there is a renter taking advantage of them and visa versa. These landlords are not social workers; they are business owners. I was also struck by the comparison of rental costs in the best verses the worst sections of the city. There was almost no difference, but landlords in the better sections could choose not to rent to low income renters. So a family trying to get out of a dangerous neighborhood has almost no options. It is not that they can't afford the rent as much as they can't get past the gate. Of course, they can't afford rents in either neighborhood. When I saw how much money was left after rent to pay for food, clothes, utilities, etc for the month, it was a shockingly impossible situation.. Food stamps might have helped; the author did not usually tell us how much that family had in food stamps to supplement the budget.
Hi Irene, Before forget, here's the link for the NYT article I mentioned. I KNOW! Folks have SO little money after they pay their rent! Such stressful, and hungry lives! And any unexpected expense--a car repair, even an ordinary illness and you're on the red. And on such low pay, often no hope of ever catching up. You can see why folks turn to illegal means of earning. Meanwhile, the (US & UK) govt's give billions in corporate tax brakes to loads of companies we all know..
So far, things seem similar to what I see. I was struck by the trailer park that was being inspected. The owner was willing to take chances on many people, but because it didn't pay (or he didn't care, I don't know which), repairs weren't made and it was set to be condemned. I have a client who doesn't have heat in his living room. When we talk to the landlord, she tells him not to spend time in the living room! We could call code (for that and other things), but then we risk making him homeless. A cold living room and a slum lord are better than the streets...I also empathized with the older woman who came in and said she threw away a bill, I've got a bunch of clients who do the same thing because they know they can't pay it, so why even look at it?
Mod
I was reading this section asking myself what I, an ordinary citizen, can do to help. And, now the Affordable Care Act is being reformed with a plan that will kick more people off subsidies, make more poor people vulnerable to devastating financial situations. I am sick and losing sleep over what is going on in our country.
I don’t know if there’s anything we can really do until we tease apart the corporate influences on government. For the past years, if not decades, government corporate subsidies have been 3-5 times the health + welfare + education budget. But favoring corporations rather than the citizens won’t stop until we can get campaign finance reform. Not every country spends billions on these fake contests. The UK campaigns only lasts about 6 weeks. I was stunned. In a good way. :)
Mod
I've read this opening section and had much the same reactions. The family's situations are tragic and frustrating at the same time. They are often struggling with the effects of likely generations of poverty which are displayed by dysfunctional/lack of structure or discipline and lower levels of education that lead to being one disaster away from homelessness. Property is not treated with respect, or they don't have the resources or knowledge to maintain it. How do you rise out of a history like that without intense mentoring?? They are truly trapped in a vicious cycle. I see families at school who are this type of transient, even in a fairly middle class neighborhood that is declining in places. They rent, can't keep up with it and move. There are perfectly valid arguments for both sides of the story. There are landlords who are struggling for their own basic survival or those that take advantage of being a slumlord and don't reinvest to maintain. Yes - this does match my experience basically. The mobile charity dental RV was at our building today and it was a little heartbreaking to see how many and who needed the services. Another example, one of our families is facing moving as the home they are renting is going on the market. They already have extended family living with them. And I think they would like to put in an offer, but I don't think they have the finances?? Records indicate a number of moves. Interesting as Mom doesn't work, but send the kids to school for breakfast, doesn't show up to conferences, kids said she had four colors of hair last time they brought it up... and the kids have trouble staying on task, one steals quite regularly. :-/ I am slightly amused that we all seem to be on the same political page, but then again I shouldn't be surprised. I can't imagine the detractors would even care about reading this book. We're all the bleeding hearts!! Agreed to all the above statements!! And happy women's celebrations this week!!
Nancy, I think you bring up a real problem. This book will rarely be read by anyone who is not already prone to think about low income housing in a particular way. How do we get the personal stories of suffering to those who are likely to condemn all low income families as simply morally deficient? I know that I am extremely guilty of reading those articles and books that further my way of thinking, unless it is a completely new topic to me. As a society, we need to be listening to one another across political ideologies.
Truly Irene - but it doesn't happen. All the algorithms of FB and other social media are geared to feed you the very ideologies you are identified with. Neither do we choose as friends people who are vastly different from us. Those conversations don't happen or if they do, they are contentious. I find it interesting when friends post to FB that they are tired of having these arguments with people and block, unfollow or unfriend them. OTOH I am just as guilty - most people on my friends list are those with whom I share political viewpoints and I don't have a lot of drama. And I am also guilty of unfollowing a few (read relatives) with whom I am left shaking my head as to how they can follow Ann Coulter and Breitbart and call it news or a humane philosophy!!
Usually I don't even have the tough conversations because I don't want the conflict. So, I am not stretched to defend my point of view nor am I exposed to the point of views of others. Too often those conversations become attacks on one another rather than a discussion of ideas. I guess it is good that people care enough to be passionate, but it is not good that we can't listen.
I admittedly avoid conflict too. It is hard for some people to separate the person from their ideologies and I am also as guilty as the next. I keep my mouth shut,If I do say anything
I avoid the conflict, too! I can't stand it so much that I won't watch video debates or interviews that are clearly political, even when I know my side "wins". I do try, at least once in a while, to read news articles that I might not agree with, but the screaming- ugh!Oddly enough, though, while many of my coworkers and colleagues are liberal-leaning, there are a surprising number who are not. I know more than a few people who voted for Trump or at least expressed that they agree(d) with him. Working in this field, it can be hard not to get (too) cynical and jaded, all around, actually. On that level, I can understand why people would want a change.
Working in housing people, and being supportive of both the clients and the landlords, I've seen people really destroy properties, or harass landlords. On the other hand, I just today had a client who wants to move into a different apartment *in the same building* and the landlord informs us that the lease said (and it did, I checked) that if a person moves out, half of their security deposit is non-refundable. When I questioned that the client is just switching apartments, I was told that it didn't matter and she (we) needed to come up with half a security deposit again! Unreal! They are generally good landlords, but I will make sure that any future clients moving into one of their properties knows that they will lose half the security deposit- which my agency pays to help people get started. It is business, I get it, but we pay a lot of money to them each month, they could have wiggled a little bit for us.
Like all of you who have posted, I share the angst about the crisis families in poverty face. And it is disheartening that most who read this book share a similar philosophy. (The others are Ayn Rand fans - ugh). Hubby and I are living in an apartment at the moment and it's been interesting. Rents are a lot higher than they were back in my student days! Most of our neighbors are considerate but we had a loosely knit family of 4 - a couple and her parents - living above us and they seemed to break all the rules - NOISY - at all hours! Smoked even though the property is supposed to be smoke free. Yapping dogs that they would leave on the balcony and they would do their business and it came through onto our patio. Yuk. Not much action from the property managers on site - the "landlord" was a company based in Indiana (we're in Virginia). In our year of living here, we've had 4 different property managers - and this is supposed to be a "luxury" apartment building. But what we have put up with is nothing compared to what the tenants in Evicted have had to deal with. I understand the landlord has to make a living but sheesh how can you live with yourself when you let families with kids live in those circumstances. They should be ashamed! Not that I excuse the tenants who trash an apartment. I'm not sure what the solution is but it saddens me to see the hopelessness.
Time to discuss the second section, "Out". Did this section give you new insights to the topic? Did your opinion of any of the families/characters or the housing system change in this section?Two things hit me hard in this portion of the book. The one thing was the ending. I was furious when the families would not have their rent returned after the fire because the law did not force her to return their rent. She is going to collect the insurance money and will add the rent money to it to further enrich herself. She knows that these renters do not have enough money to pay monthly rent, let alone come up with a second sum for a new place that month with an additional sum for the security deposit on the new place. By holding onto that rent, she is ensuring that they will be homeless. She obviously has enough money to pay her bills. She just returned from a Carribean vacation. How could she be so heartless to people who have lost all their property, their entire lives in this tragedy?
The other thing that hit me was the claim that sympathy for those living with housing insecurity is only found among libral middle class folks. The poor are the most unsympathetic to others who are losing their homes. I did not fully understand why that was. I would have thought that going through it, feeling the frustration of a system stacked against you would make you more sympathetic to others facing the same problems.
What struck the rest of you as you read this?
Mod
If I were at all sympathetic to her cause, a business woman trying to make a go of rentals in an area of the city with a large proportion of low income renters, that scene blew it for me. I saw her as greedy, selfish and completely unethical.
I agree, Irene. I had been sympathetic to her to some extent, but now--not a chance. I am aghast at: 1) How various government programs, and systems work against poor folks and; 2) How landlords purposefully 'mine' the poor areas because they can get a bigger return. I know this is no different than any business -- all about the money, honey. Except that this is different, it's about people's lives and their ability to possibly live stable ones. And this is hurting the futures for these kids. This disrupts their education, increases stress, leaves them hungry when their grownups run out of money, and makes for unstable friendships when you keep moving around.
This will set up the next generation for more of the same problems with disorganized lives, outside of the mainstream financially, educationally, and as far as quality of life.
It shows (in case we had any doubts) that our government in the US doesn't REALLY care about us constituents. They've got money for the military, even though the US military is many times mightier than ANYONE else's already. They've got money for billions in corporate subsidies. And people scrabbling to literally put food on the table don't have the time to become politically active --and they ain't the big donators, of course. What. A. Nightmare.
And what I am seeing of the draft to modify the Affordable Care Act looks as if it will only make things harder for those at the bottom of the income bracket.I was also really upset by the ramifications of those who turned to the police for help. Someone calls the police because a neighbor is being beat up by a boyfriend or asks the police for protection in a domestic violence situation and the police tell the landlord to get rid of the disturbance. So, the system tells the victims of domestic violence to shut their mouths and take the beating if they don't want to land on the streets. And those without papers are doubly at risk for landing on the streets.
Mod
"The year the police called Sherrena, Wisconsin saw more than one victim a week murdered by a current or former romantic partner or relative. After the numbers were releaseed, Milwaukee's chief of police appeared on the local news and puzzled over the facts that many victims had never contacted the police for help....What the chief failed to realize, or failed to reveal, was that his department's own rules presented battered women with a devil's bargain: keep quiet and face abuse or call the police and face eviction."
This should not happen, not to any woman. Women are dying here. There should never have to be a choice between "be abused with the posibility of DEATH at the hands of your partner" or "be homeless".
I agree. And the same thing is currently happening with undocumented residents. They are afraid to go to the ER, to complain when an employer fails to pay them, to seek help when they are the victim of domestic violence or violent crime. We are supposed to be a civilized society that respects the dignity of every person. This is beyond shameful.
Sheila and Irene, you are both spot on. The futility of contacting police or seeking medical treatment that is experienced by so many marginalized populations - the poor, the undocumented, the mentally ill, women, LGBT - saddens me so and it seems to be worsening in our current political climate. Some say this is not who we are as a nation but I'm concerned that this may be exactly who we are as a nation and the question becomes, how do we change the thinking?
Is everyone ready to discuss the end of the book? What do you think of Desmond's conclusions? Is his portrayal of the situation of low income renters accurate? Is his portrayal of discrimination against African American renters accurate?
He shows some of his subjects gaining stable housing and their lives directly improving while others do not and their lives do not. Do you think stable housing has this much of an impact on issues such as addiction? Can a stable house change a lifetime of learned attitudes and behaviors?
Is this a chicken or an egg problem? Does bad personal or parent decisions lead to instable housing lead to worse behaviors? If so, at which point should society intervene? Should we enforce stricter housing codes on landlords or would this cause them to pull out of certain areas leaving fewer vacant units? Should the government on the state or federal level try to solve this problem by building more low income housing or providing vouchers? Or is this a situation for which tax payers should not be left footing the bill?
Did your opinion of the landlords in this book change over the course of the study? How and why? Are landlords responsible for the problem?
What should we do now that we have read and been informed?
Mod
This book is certainly a thought provoker. And I honestly don't know what the answers are. There seem to be problems on all sides leading to these issues, some with landlords taking advantage of people, some with people making very poor choices in their lives, and I am not sure there is any "one solution" to the problems.
The systematic discrimination against African American renters was disturbing. Far better apartments for roughly the same cost in much safer neighborhoods were available, but African American tenants were consistently denied access to them. Even when the author admitted to reporting the discrimination in his postword, the authorities ignored it. If a researcher can't get the authorities to pay attention, how is the poor discriminated against tenant ever going to get justice?
Discussion leader will be Irene. Who will be joining us?