Housing Quotes by Matthew Desmond

Housing being a top-order issue for cities is something that's not trivial.

— Matthew Desmond

African American women, and moms in particular, are evicted at disproportionately high rates.

— Matthew Desmond

I don't think that you can address poverty unless you address the lack of affordable housing in the cities.

— Matthew Desmond

It takes a good amount of time and money to establish a home. Eviction can erase all that.

— Matthew Desmond

Eviction reveals people's vulnerability and desperation as well as their ingenuity and guts.

— Matthew Desmond

Housing is a social issue: how we live and where we live.

— Matthew Desmond

Housing is absolutely essential to human flourishing. Without stable shelter, it all falls apart.

— Matthew Desmond

The church should lead on issues of housing and affordability.

— Matthew Desmond

When you meet people who are spending 70, 80 percent of their income on rent, eviction becomes much more of an inevitability…

— Matthew Desmond

A lot of people didn't know just what eviction does to people, how it really sets their life on a different and…

— Matthew Desmond

Eviction affects old folks and young folks, sick people and able-bodied people, white communities and African-American communities.

— Matthew Desmond

The face of the eviction epidemic is moms and kids, especially poor moms from predominantly Latino and African American neighborhoods.

— Matthew Desmond

Eviction riots erupted during the Depression, though the number of poor families who faced eviction each year was a fraction of what…

— Matthew Desmond

If you have someone who is paying 88 percent of her income on rent, and we have laws that allow a landlord…

— Matthew Desmond

“Most poor people in America were like Arleen: they did not live in public housing or apartments subsidized by vouchers. Three in…

— Matthew Desmond

If eviction has these massive consequences that we all pay for, a very smart use of public funds would be to invest…

— Matthew Desmond

Eviction comes with a record. Just like a criminal record can hurt you in the jobs market, eviction can hurt you in…

— Matthew Desmond

“If tenants resisted excessive rent hikes or unwarranted evictions, it was because they invested in their homes and neighborhoods. They felt they…

— Matthew Desmond

“Along with instability, eviction also causes loss. Families lose not only their home, school, and neighborhood but also their possessions: furniture, clothes,…

— Matthew Desmond

“For example, a program that ran from 2005 to 2008 in the South Bronx provided more than 1,300 families with legal assistance…

— Matthew Desmond

“In the vast majority of cases (83 percent), landlords who received a nuisance citation for domestic violence responded by either evicting the…

— Matthew Desmond

Since evictions go through court, it has a record that comes with it, and many landlords that I spend time with use…

— Matthew Desmond

Without the ability to plant roots and invest in your community or your school - because you're paying 60, 70, 80 percent…

— Matthew Desmond

Healthcare providers have helped me see that decent, safe housing can promote physical and mental wellness; and engaged citizens have shown me…

— Matthew Desmond

“Poor neighborhoods provided their residents with quite a lot. In the trailer park, residents met people who knew how to pirate cable,…

— Matthew Desmond

“These days, there are sheriff squads whose full-time job is to carry out eviction and foreclosure orders. There are moving companies specializing…

— Matthew Desmond

“90 percent of landlords are represented by attorneys, and 90 percent of tenants are not.35 Low-income families on the edge of eviction…

— Matthew Desmond

“When several patients committed suicide in the days leading up to their eviction, a group of psychiatrists published a letter in Psychiatric…

— Matthew Desmond

“A single eviction could destabilize multiple city blocks, not only the block from which a family was evicted but also the block…

— Matthew Desmond

“A universal voucher program is but one potential policy recommendation. Let others come. Establishing the basic right to housing in America could…

— Matthew Desmond

“Tenants able to pay their rent in full each month could take advantage of legal protections designed to keep their housing safe…

— Matthew Desmond

“Losing your home and possessions and often your job; being stamped with an eviction record and denied government housing assistance; relocating to…

— Matthew Desmond

“A universal housing voucher program would carve a middle path between the landlord’s desire to make a living and the tenant’s desire,…

— Matthew Desmond

“Legal aid to the poor has been steadily diminishing since the Reagan years and was decimated during the Great Recession. The result…

— Matthew Desmond

“In Milwaukee, a city of fewer than 105,000 renter households, landlords evict roughly 16,000 adults and children each year. That's sixteen families…

— Matthew Desmond

“Residential stability begets a kind of psychological stability, which allows people to invest in their home and social relationships. It begets school…

— Matthew Desmond

The face of America's eviction epidemic is a mom with kids.

— Matthew Desmond

Eviction is much more an inevitability than a result of irresponsibility.

— Matthew Desmond

An eviction is an incredibly time consuming and stressful event.

— Matthew Desmond

We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty.

— Matthew Desmond