What Evicted shows is that without stable, dependable housing everything falls to ruin. It is an incredibly vicious cycle that those who get stuck in it almost never get out, it becomes a lifelong reality. Having evictions on your record severely limits your choices for living arrangements, and the housing choices that you are left with are dangerous or practically uninhabitable. It is not that eviction causes poverty that is key to understanding the crux of the issue, but rather how it keeps people in poverty.

The lengths that Matthew Desmond went to for this book are absolutely remarkable, his commitment and dedication to seeing this project through is honestly what I find most extraordinary. The contents of this book are almost entirely a firsthand account, though he masterfully and carefully was able to write himself out of it entirely. The stories in this book are quite painful to read, but I can not imagine how it must have been to experience first-hand.