“Evicted: [Poverty and Profit in the American City] tells . . .  disturbing stories in spellbinding detail in service of two main points. One is that growing numbers of low-income households pay crushing shares of their incomes for shelter—50 percent, 60 percent, 70 percent, and more—leaving inadequate sums for items as basic as medicine and food. Their numbers were rising for decades but soared to record levels during the Great Recession. The book’s second point is that the evictions aren’t just a consequence of poverty but also a cause. Evictions make kids change schools and cost adults their jobs. They undermine neighborhoods, force desperate families into worse housing, and leave lasting emotional scars. Yet they have been an afterthought, if that, in discussions of poverty.”

Jason DeParle, “Kicked Out in America,” a review in the New York Review (March 10, 2016, pp:25-27) of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond.