Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Matthew Desmond · first published 2016 · ISBN 9780553447439
Desmond spent years in Milwaukee following eight families as they fought to keep shelter. He documents how they lost homes not because of personal failures but because rent consumed half their income. The book traces the machinery of eviction itself, showing how it works as a poverty machine.
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A Pulitzer Prize winner that fundamentally changed how people think about housing. Desmond reports rather than theorizes, and his numbers add weight to every scene. This is the standard for poverty journalism.
This book transforms how you understand poverty. You'll see that individual failure is not the issue; the system is designed to displace and impoverish. Desmond's stories of real families make clear why housing justice belongs at the center of social work.