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“The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the means to seek self-improvement.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
In Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond reflects the sagacity of Martin Luther King’s words as he traces the stories of several families living below the poverty line, capturing their struggle to affirm a sense of stability through the most fundamental structure to American life—the home. Providing the foundation for our formative years and the walls within which we can seek restorative peace during life’s tumultuous moments, the home fosters a sense of ownership that enables us to venture beyond our doorstep and build meaningful relationships within our community, creating a robust network of caring, actively engaged citizens. After reading Desmond’s work, it becomes exceedingly clear that perhaps the most critical step along the path toward realizing the American dream is ensuring the universal right to residential stability.
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond
Unfortunately, the concept of “home” has eluded the grasp of millions of Americans. In recent years, the eviction cycle has perniciously come to define the lives of America’s poor. Notably, eviction is often a catalyst for, rather than a consequence of, collapsing into penury. The stress of being forced from one’s home and community also means abandoning one’s possessions and frequently one’s job. Due to a lack of basic necessities and services, those forced from their homes have a higher likelihood of experiencing hunger and sickness. Moreover, displaced families are often systematically denied public housing because evictions leave an indelible, uncompromising mark on one’s housing record. As a result of the hardships that accompany eviction, families are more likely to accept substandard housing that coerces them into dilapidated neighborhoods.
Eviction also disproportionately targets the most vulnerable populations, such as single, minority mothers and young children, inducing psychological distress. As Desmond notes, “If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women.” While enduring degrading living conditions, single mothers become painfully aware that their home consumes the majority of their income, piercing their self-esteem and contributing to depression, and in some extreme instances, suicide. For children in particular, eviction can be especially traumatic, branding a permanent scar that tarnishes the rest of their lives. As children are forced to relinquish their few possessions, schools, and friends, the emotional burden of eviction is incalculable, as is the loss of irretrievable educational opportunities.
Furthermore, the impact of eviction reverberates to derail the collective stability of the entire neighborhood. As Desmond notes with regard to Doreen’s eviction, the neighborhood “lost a steadying presence—someone who loved and invested in the neighborhood, who contributed to making the block safer.” Indeed, high-turnover neighborhoods are far less likely to develop the cohesiveness that drives a sense of commonality and purpose.
With determination and commitment, however, this wanton suffering is well within our ability to redress. Embedded within our unalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” lies our right to shelter. Progress in this area, while significant, has nonetheless been incomplete. For example, to replace the housing projects of the 20th century, the federally funded Housing Choice Voucher Program arose to help low-income families secure decent housing in the private market, reducing homelessness and allowing families to retain more of their income. In the legal system, there has been progress in providing tenants the right to counsel against unfair housing practices. The majority of families, however, wait years to receive federal assistance but never actually obtain it, and the accounts Desmond provides are far too common to defend legal aid as a sufficient remedy. While the federal government provides many basic services that are widely accepted as fundamental to American dignity, among the most pressing—housing—remains inadequately addressed.
If we ordain shelter to be a fundamental right, then our policies must not permit exploitation of the indigent. For example, an increase in the minimum wage may ostensibly be geared toward helping the poor, but if the additional income is usurped by a landlord requiring a higher rent, then there is no net benefit. Indeed, Desmond implores us to examine the broader issue of market-based extraction, which impacts not only housing, but many other spheres as well. When addressing housing, and poverty in general, we cannot condemn the landlords or employers for responding to incentives within the system, but rather we must amend the shortcomings within our policies that allow for social ills to arise.
Providing residential stability to all requires that we set aside our own particular economic situation and consider what is in society’s best interest. The renowned 20th-century political philosopher John Rawls hypothesized a “veil of ignorance,” urging us to forget whether we are landlord or tenant, wealthy or poor, white or Black, employed or unemployed, thus permitting us to construct a more equitable market reflecting democratic ideals. Rawls’s theory holds that all should have equal opportunity and that none should fall beneath a basic security net.
Well aligned with Rawls’s views would be a universal voucher program, which would provide any family below a certain income level the ability to obtain decent, fairly priced housing with a stable rent. In Europe, similar programs have yielded tremendous benefits. There are also more specialized approaches that could be individually tailored for different cities, such as community building programs, which could help lower-income citizens eventually move into their own home and obtain a fulfilling job. For example, Seattle’s “tiny house” initiatives encourage women to construct a community in which everyone can contribute and claim a part as their own, both instituting a vital sense of pride and belonging and also opening new employment opportunities. To help fund such programs, we could modify the mortgage interest deduction in our tax code, which currently heavily favors the wealthy, so that it applies only to lower-income families. By providing every American the right to a home, we could maximize our potential as a society, with ripple effects upon all other aspects of American life.
Throughout Evicted, Desmond asserts that there is no greater return on any societal investment than ensuring that every family has a stable home. In addition to this economic rationale, our abiding sense of justice demands that we provide shelter for all. Already, our policies and laws, such as bans on child labor and minimum-wage mandates, underscore our nation’s long-standing objective of preventing exploitation. A universal right to a safe and stable home is therefore well within the bounds of our democratic values. By investing adequately in housing, we can ensure our citizens the basic residential security necessary to achieve their full potential. Along with this security will come vast improvements in the development of our communities, from education to health care to public safety. It is only by giving every American equal opportunity to housing and the concomitant sense of independence that we can ensure the dignity of each individual, enabling every one of our citizens to flourish, and thus truly fulfill Martin Luther King’s enduring vision.
