Poverty is difficult to fully understand without experiencing it directly. Sociologist Matthew Desmond attempts to provide a different perspective on this issue through the lens of those struggling with poverty. This ethnography covers the lives of eight families and many others living in the College Mobile Home Park, a poverty-stricken area in Milwaukee, one of the poorest cities in the U.S.; Desmond lived there for one year, diligently taking notes and recording the experiences of the people he encountered. In Evicted, Matthew Desmond describes the interconnectedness of housing and poverty and highlights the exploitation of the poor through the scope of eviction. Throughout the book, he describes the factors contributing to the cyclical nature …show more content…
If residents complain about the unfit conditions of the houses, demand repairs, or cause any kind of trouble, they can expect to be ousted quickly, with little warning. Trouble can come in many forms, from loud or rambunctious children to domestic violence, which can lead to the arrival of the police, a major hindrance for landlords. As a result, tenants are forced to live in uninhabitable conditions without complaint, while potentially enduring violence. Desmond concludes in his book that poverty is a lucrative business that is exploited by the ruling class. Individuals in poverty are in the direst of situations in America and are more often than not left with only one or two options, neither of which are actually helpful to them This is exploited by landlords, rent-to-own stores, payday loans, and many …show more content…
While arguing for the complexity of the issue of poverty, Desmond features the experiences of some who had made the mistakes that critics would scapegoat as all-encompassing explanations for poverty. For instance, addiction cost some their livelihoods, like Scott, a nurse whose opioid addiction cost him his nursing license. Or Lamar, a double amputee who lost both of his legs after falling asleep outdoors while high on crack cocaine. In another testimony, a woman admits to spending an entire month’s worth of food stamps on one lavish meal of
Evicted by Matthew Desmond is a novel that tells the stories of families struggling to pay the rent in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In this book, just like Missoula, the stories are intertwined with each other. So far the stories have followed two landlords: Sherrena Tarver and Tobin Charney. Sheerena owns property all over the predominantly black north side of Milwaukee. She is strong and caring, but I think she is not fair to her tenants.
Housing is a huge part of the economy. Everybody a certain point in their life becomes a tenant or a homeowner. Recently, I read “Evicted “written by Matthew Desmond , a story of tenants and homeowners in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Matthew narrates a story different families with various background, race, and needs. All those family faced a commonly problem which is an eviction.
Moreover, there is a copious amount of stories of people struggling to survive. We experience some of those accounts in Nickel and Dimed by journalist and author Barbara Ehrenreich, a novel about the working class of America, and also in Living
Such as, Caroline who “was both black and Indian, a migrant farmworker, and had been raped by someone and also abused by her boyfriend” (133). By introducing an extensive array of real low-wage workers, like Caroline, the audience makes note to the multiplicity of the workers personalities and background. Ehrenreich discredits those who claim low-wage workers are all lazy, unambitious and “homogenous in personality or ability” by clearly identifying many people who do not fit that mold (8). Ehrenreich wants to stress that “the only thing holding back welfare recipients was” was not “their reluctance” to get a job” (196); but the entire system for low-wage workers. It can be nearly impossible to escape poverty for even the most tenacious person depending on the
As Davidson blames a “dysfunctional family” (1997) for teenage pregnancies, the Art of Living Institute takes a pride in providing all kinds of support, including education, to promote leaving the welfare system. The third fable Davidson tells about the famous “welfare queen” (1997), who cheated the welfare system and was portrayed as an example by President Ronald Reagan on many occasions. Davidson explains this pure fantasy, as welfare recipients have hard times to meet the ends, especially the single
In the article “How I Discovered the Truth about Poverty” Barbara Ehrenreich gives her view in poverty and explains why she think Michael Harington’s book “The Other American” gives a wrong view on poverty. She explained that Harrington believes that the poor thought and felt differently and what divides the poor was their different “culture of poverty.” Ehrenreich goes on to explain on how the book that became a best seller caused so many bad stereotypes on the poor that by the Reagan era poverty was seen as “bad attitudes” and “faulty lifestyles” and not by the lack of jobs or low paying jobs. And they also viewed the poor as “Dissolute, promiscuous, prone to addiction and crime, unable to “defer gratification,” or possibly even set an alarm clock.”
J.D Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis is a personal psychological, cultural and sociological analysis of poor white working-class Americans. Specifically, Hillbilly Elegy examines the life of the author in Middletown Ohio, a once booming post war steel town that today has a struggling economy, diminishing family values and a rapid increase in drug abuse. At the beginning of the memoir, Vance perfectly situates the reader to the uniqueness from his life in Middletown. Vance repeatedly wrote throughout the memoir that the youth living in this Ohio steel town has a bleak and troubling future. Vance illustrates the statistics that children like him living in these towns were lucky if they just manage to avoid welfare or unlucky by dying from a heroin overdose.
He already didn't have much money but he thought he had enough to buy other things. The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families caused Lamar to fall back on rent. Are these departments helping people out of poverty or digging a bigger whole for them? Desmond really showcases this by letting readers know how these social systems drive people more into poverty by using tactics such was "mistakenly sending welfare checks to peoples' home with their name on it." This led to Lamar doing odd jobs for Sherrena in the apartment complex.
The Glass Castle: Controversial Topics. The Glass Castle is a 2005 book by Jeannette Walls. The memoir explains the author’s life, growing up with her family most especially with her parents who could be described as nomads and deadbeats. Notwithstanding the difficult upbringing, her siblings and she had, Jeannette perseveres and becomes a successful Journalist living in New York City.
People in poverty are generally portrayed as worthless and this is because culture today illustrates a man’s worth from how materially successful they are. Hooks explains how this kind of representation of the poor can mentally and emotionally handicap and entire society of people in poverty. She goes into an example of how a
Hassan Aslam Sociology 101 11/01/14 Camden Chronicles: Children in Urban Poverty In the video, Camden Chronicles: Children in Urban Poverty, the sociological issue of struggles faces by people living in poverty is depicted very powerfully. The video focuses on the city of Camden, New Jersey. Camden is one of the poorest cities in the whole country and the people living there find themselves surrounded by crime and murder and drug wars.
Matthew Desmond’s Evicted takes a sociological approach to understanding the low-income housing system by following eight families as they struggle for residential stability. The novel also features two landlords of the families, giving the audience both sides and allowing them to make their own conclusions. Desmond goes to great lengths to make the story accessible to all classes and races, but it seems to especially resonate with people who can relate to the book’s subjects or who are liberals in sound socioeconomic standing. With this novel, Desmond hopes to highlight the fundamental structural and cultural problems in the evictions of poor families, while putting faces to the housing crisis. Through the lens of the social reproduction theory, Desmond argues in Evicted that evictions are not an effect of poverty, but rather, a cause of it.
In the passage “What is poverty?”, the author Jo Goodwin Parker, describes a variety of things that she considers to portray the poverty in which she lives in. She seems to do this through her use of first-person point of view to deliver a view of poverty created by a focused use of rhetorical questions, metaphors, imagery, and repetition to fill her audience with a sense of empathy towards the poor. The author’s use of first person point of view creates the effect of knowing exactly what she is feeling. “The baby and I suffered on. I have to decide every day if I can bear to put my cracked hands into the cold water and strong soap.”
Public Policy on Housing Discrimination Executive Summary Housing discrimination and segregation have long been present in the American society (Lamb and Wilk). The ideals of public housing and home buying have always been intertwined with the social and political transformation of America, especially in terms of segregation and inequality of capital and race (Wyly, Ponder and Nettking). Nevertheless, the recent unrest in Ferguson, Missouri and in Baltimore due to alleged police misconduct resulting to deaths of black men brought light on the impoverished conditions in urban counties in America (Lemons). This brings questions to the effectiveness of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in devising more fair-housing facilities (Jost).
EFFECT OF LANDLORD AND TENANT RELATIONSHIP ON RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY Having a healthy landlord and tenant relationship on residential property is pre-requisite for growth and development of the property and societal advancements. A good tenant and landlord relationship backed up with a comprehensive tenancy agreement makes for a good platform for and timely payment of rents. Having a tenant that pays rent on time or when due creates a cordial relationship and also boosts tenant satisfaction because the landlord derives joy from tenants that follows the tenancy agreement entered into during the period of instatement. Tenant relations generally deal with avoiding and resolving issues concerning