Many people have very codified perceptions of “people who get evicted” and suspect that those people are largely responsible—through bad decision making—for their circumstances. Did you feel this way before reading excerpts from Evicted? Why or why not? Did your opinions change after reading sections of the book? If so, how?
April 1, 2019 at 6:52 am
Prior to reading Evicted, I did not have any extensive knowledge on evictions or many preconceived perceptions about “people who get evicted.” I thought that it was definitely a possibility that people were responsible for their own eviction because it was their fault that they fell behind on their payments. However, after reading the first part of this book, I have a much better picture of the eviction process and my perceptions have shifted. Some of the people Desmond profiles do fit the criteria of bringing their eviction upon themselves, but many do not. In several cases, there are single mothers who fall behind on payments because they are struggling to maintain a well-paying job while providing for young children. In other instances, there are people that have gotten injured and only receive so much money from welfare and disability stipends to live off of. There are also the cases of the people that become addicted to drugs after having a successful life. For example, at one point, Scott was a certified nurse who had made $88,000 one year, but then got injured, became addicted to drugs, lost his job, lost all of his money and was ultimately unable to pay rent in the trailer park he had moved to. While Scott’s story may paint a picture of someone who is responsible for his own downfall, it also calls up a bigger question about society, the way we handle injuries and welfare, and the way that rent is structured. Many of the families Desmond profiled were receiving some type of welfare and/or were working some type of job. Yet, for many families even with these forms of income it is nearly impossible to pay rent. This raises many issues related to rent. For the landlords, it is their job to collect rent so that they can support their own families, but there are too many families that don’t have enough money to pay this rent—which results in multiple people suffering. Thus, I do not think that all of the families that end up getting evicted are completely responsible through bad decision making, but rather through a series of events that may be out of their control coupled with poor education, jobs and sometimes decision making.