Evicted

While I understand that this is a book about poverty and how badly poor communities are treated, I couldn't help but get mad at the tenants, the landlord, and the author. Most of the tenants in this book are portrayed in such a negative light. They can't pay their rent for any variety of reasons. One tenant said she couldn't because her sister died, another said he couldn't because her kid needed new shoes, another straight up told his landlord he wasn't paying because he, without notice, decided to repaint the inside of his house and would like that deducted from his rent. The landlords, oh the landlords. These landlords did not make it easy on the tenants. One of the landlords refused to fix broken sinks, refused repainting, refused plumbing; yet she and her husband went on a Caribbean vacation off of the rent money they collected. She also let tenants that were previously evicted continue to stay on the property with the new tenant, but will deny that in court, I'm sure. She was probably the worst landlord in the book. Many of the other landlords continuously let tenants fall behind on rent, but not evict them. They would give these tenants time and time again, knowing nothing was going to change. However, these same landlords understood how awful it is to live in poverty and would actually buy clothes and groceries for their tenants. Because the tenants would spend their allotted food stamps on one meal as soon as they received them! Now for the author, Matthew Desmond can write. From what I understand, he personally works with those living in poverty. He wants to make a change in the way America treats the poor. But at times, Evicted felt like a feature magazine article that ran 350 pages.... Overall, it was a good read and I'm glad Blogging for Books gave me the opportunity to review Evicted!