The Shortcomings of Matthew Desmond's 'Evicted'

Matthew Desmond's ethnographic study has received critical praise. But David Adler asks whether the book's approach tacitly lets affluent non-landlords off the hook.

Matthew Desmond's Pulitzer-winning Evicted looks as America's housing crisis through the eyes of its underdogs: tenants at the mercy of profiteering landlords. While publicizing those perspectives is important, David Adler gets the sense that "most readers feel that the Desmond's evictions are distant from them — something they merely observe as sympathetic spectators, rather than something in which all of us actively participate."1

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... while the book makes valuable contributions to public understanding of eviction, the overwhelming critical enthusiasm for Desmond’s book should perhaps give us pause. After all, most journalists and academics live in municipalities where housing inequality runs high. We might, in general, expect Desmond’s call for fairly apportioned housing to engender some resistance — or at least some uncomfortable reflection — from those readers who enjoy the fruits of housing market exclusion from brunch on the corner to dinner in the brownstone.

Instead, Evicted has met only eager approval. The reason for this, I believe, is that most readers feel that the Desmond’s evictions are distant from them — something they merely observe as sympathetic spectators, rather than something in which all of us actively participate. The deceptive simplicity of Desmond’s policy prescription—housing vouchers—implies that an inclusive housing system can be accomplished in one fell swoop, without any substantial sacrifices or lifestyle change on the part of the privileged.

As a moral portrait, Desmond’s book is Manichean, with clear delineations between good and evil. The protagonists confront injustice after injustice: Arleen and her children are evicted, and then they are robbed, and then evicted once more. Lamar, who lost both of his legs when he passed out in a freezing house, faces eviction with his two children, and is unable to collect his disability benefits. Villainous landlords, meanwhile, inflict injustice without much remorse. “You know, if you have money right now, you can profit from other people’s failures,” says Sherrena Tarver, a former schoolteacher and one of Desmond’s main landlord contacts. “I’m catching properties. I’m catching ’em.” Sherrena gambles, she travels, she evicts. At times, Desmond is careful to humanize Sherrena, who is making her way in a world that does not afford many opportunities to black women. Overall, however, Desmond portrays her as self-pitying (“If you ever thinking about become [sic] a landlord, don’t… Get the short end of the stick every time”), self-important (“these low-quality people,” she complains of her tenants), and self-satisfied (“The ’hood is good”). The other landlord who appears in Desmond’s account is Tobin Charney, who makes over $400,000 from 131 trailers. He is, according to his tenants, a “greedy Jew.” From chapter to chapter, we are led from heartbreak to righteous outrage.

But the moral universe in Evicted is small.

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