LOST A CHILDHOOD HOME TO FORECLOSURE

“In an afterword, [Matthew] Desmond explains that his own family lost his childhood home to foreclosure about the time he left for college. He says that researching the book ‘left me depressed for years.’ But Evicted isn’t a depressing book. It is also a stirring reminder that the US accepts as ordinary a depth of poverty that is extraordinary and cruel. At its heart is a simple message: ‘No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become.’”

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.