I am a voracious reader, so I don’t say this lightly—Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond is one of the best books I've read. It’s well-written, well-researched, experiential, important, and engaging…winning the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction. https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/matthew-desmond

This book explores the root and cycles of housing insecurity, which is one of the most prominent social drivers of health (SDOH). Through individual stories and personal witness, Desmond explores income inequality, poverty, racism, and discrimination, and how these issues drive and perpetuate housing insecurity in the United States.

To provide an honest and insightful account of these topics, Desmond spent time living in several low-income communities in Milwaukee. First, he inhabited a trailer park on the outskirts of town predominantly inhabited by white Americans. He then moved into a section of town that's predominantly populated by African Americans with extremely low income. In each of these two sections of the city, Desmond gets to know the residents by living within the community.

By following the personal stories of several families and individuals he provides details on how the economics work in these people’s lives and how the constructs keep people from moving out of poverty. The personal narratives bring the struggles to life as we read of the painstaking perseverance required to try and find housing by submitting more than eighty applications with no results, of how having children can be a barrier to securing and sustaining housing, and of how victims of domestic abuse are further punished through losing their homes. Desmond includes perspective from the landlords and the financial dynamics that lead to the cycle of housing insecurity.

Throughout the narrative, Desmond is a master at connecting the story of these people’s lives to something bigger. He describes how society’s laws, regulation, and rules around taxation allow the cycle of poverty and profit to continue.

Reading this book made me feel humbled, inspired, and committed to continuing the important work that we do in addressing health-related social needs generally, and housing in particular. It’s a big feat to make a book about the devastating impacts of systemic poverty into a narrative that is both page-turning compelling and also lands with hope.

I can’t wait to read Desmond’s upcoming book on poverty in America! For those who have read Evicted, I would love to swap thoughts!