Gosh, this is such a sad book. Author Matthew Desmond (originally from AZ, heyo), takes a deeply personal look at the heart of poverty in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Desmond spent awhile living in a trailer park in the white South Side and in cheap apartments in the inner city black North Side. He trailed two landowners—one white, one black—and a handful of their tenants, as he studied, listened, and learned about all the facets of poverty in contemporary America. What emerges is such a profound level of injustice, unfairness, and brokenness on all sides—landowners, renters, lenders, and the judicial system—that it seems this toxic cycle can never be broken unless housing policy is completely revolutionized.

Just stop to think about how much of an impact an eviction has, not just on the family, but on the whole community:
- Kids miss days of school in the search for new housing, and often need to change schools in the middle of the semester;
- Families lose their possessions which usually end up getting thrown into the trash;
- Parents lose their job due to missed work or mistakes made on the job because of the stress caused by an eviction;
- Gov't financial programs and court-ordered programs get messed up because of frequent, sudden address changes (the parents don't receive notices to attend court hearings or CPS appointments, resulting in arrests, loss of program progress, punishments, more fines, and larger debt);
- Added burden on shelters and non-profits;
- Evicted families are not in a position to negotiate with potential future landlords about the condition of the property because they need to move in ASAP and they need a landlord who will accept their eviction history;
- A sudden loss of home and uprooting usually means that the next property after an eviction is treated with less care, and the family doesn't fully integrate into the new community. Thus, two neighborhoods suffer when one family is evicted—the original neighborhood loses a diligent member, and the new neighborhood gains a member who doesn't care.
This list doesn't even address the stress on landlords, social systems, or the judicial system. It's all so broken. And goodness, the odds are so stacked against single moms, especially black single moms. The most vulnerable in our society are the ones who get the most kicks while they are down.

This world is so far from my own. The level of poverty in this book is at the "one mistake away from homelessness" level—one medical emergency, one three-day bender, one funeral service and that is enough to cause these families to fall behind a month or two on rent and get evicted. But we know times are changing and the middle class is harder and harder to hold on to. There are so many stories in the news of people working three jobs and still qualifying for food stamps. Or that NY Times profile of a town whose unemployment rate is just like the rest of the country, <3%, yet people living below the poverty line is >40%. How can this be? We need to face the reality that strong morals and hard work doesn't cut it. Our country is broken and we are too selfish and divided to even talk about fixing it. How many of us love watching It's a Wonderful Life and shaking our head at Pottersville every year, but we are blind to realize that the lack of affordable housing and squeezing every legal cent out of the disadvantaged is exactly the problem with our inner city Pottersvilles of today?

I'm not saying that there is a quick-fix solution to the multi-faceted problem of urban poverty, but we have to break this idea that the church has the ability to fix it (it doesn't—how many of ya'll's churches were able to pay all the bills and have a surplus last year?), or that some sort of moral failure causes it (don't even the rich have moral failures?), or that stronger social services are the answer. It is so complex that a solution would need to address all of those things: strong, fair public policy; well funded, equipped, and well monitored social programs; private citizens volunteering their time, money, and lives; companies offering work pro-bono; judicial reform in terms of public defenders for housing court cases; businesses that have the spirit of George Bailey—out to make a living, not to suck the community dry; individuals who show patience, mercy, and humility.

If you ever read the Bible and think about the rebukes that God gives countries that take advantage of the poor, the widows and orphans, the disabled, and the foreigners, well, you should read this book to get a good idea of what God was referring to.