The Evicted
The Evicted represents a unique novel that explores the impact of housing and evictions in modern families. The book describes the various struggles that families go through when facing eviction and poverty. Mathew Desmond dispels the notion that eviction is the source of misery by using different families in the book to show that poverty comes from eviction and not vice-versa. Many families in Milwaukee’s south side area pay close to 90% of their monthly income to proprietors to avoid eviction (Desmond, 2016). For low-income families to survive, the persons end up depending on food stamps and government housing programs. However, entry into public housing requires resilience, patients, and luck. Many families opt to enrol into private housing or subsidized housing programs since public housing takes a long time for approval. The study looks at Arleen’s family, Doreen Hinkston’s family, and Larraine’s family to provide insight into the sociological effects of eviction in the United States.
Arleen’s Family
The book begins by introducing a game that Arleen’s children are playing with snow. Throwing snow at passing cars ends up soar when one driver stops his car and chases after the children (Desmond, 2016). Jori and his cousin run and hide inside an apartment but the man knocks the door down and leaves after that. When Sherrena hears about the incident, she ends up evicting Arleen with her children. The family shift and goes to live in a shelter that was nicknamed the lodge. The house was spacious enough and silent; however; the house was soon declared unfit for inhabitation owing to the lack of a working toilet or sink. The family was forced to move once again, and they ended up n a street full of drug dealers. When Arleen learns that, the road harbored drug dealers, she opts to move fearing the lives of her children. She ends up becoming Sherrena’s tenant, but she had to pay 88% of her income as part of the rent (Desond, 2016). The prologue shows how cold the city was. The rich did not care about the poor in society since they were only interested in filling their pockets. Property owners opted to use their power and money to control lower-class individuals by pretending to develop policies.
The outcome proves that the interpretation forms society that individuals make from everyday activities. Individuals choose specific aspects from which they create meaning and interpret (Turner, 2012). Using an interactive sociological perspective, one can analyze particular elements of the character Arleen and some of the actions that she performed. First, the book begins with the eviction of Arleen from the apartment they had lived in for eight months. The owner evicts the family after seeing the lock to the apartment broken. He viewed the symbol as a destructive family that would break everything in the apartment and cause problems to everyone. The owner evicts the family to avoid any more questions and spares the apartment any more damage.
Arleen does not take long to relocate from the drab apartment complex on Atkinson Avenue. She stayed at the house for only a month and moved fearing for Jori, who was a friendly child (Page 3). According to Deviance theory, Jori would have quickly joined the drug dealers and become a peddler since human beings have the behavior of accepting and following the deviant culture that they interact within their surroundings. Jori would soon have taken drug dealing as a distinguished career and would soon have started doing and selling drugs.
Arleen’s family had already gotten used to living a life of poverty. Ever since Arleen was 19 years old, she had stayed in the private housing market despite having a subsidized. Raising her children in such conditions in the south side area of Milwaukee had forced Arleen to learn to live without utilities. Most of her income went to rent, and the rest was spent on food. She was living in such conditions where neighbors also had the same lifestyle. Arleen had accepted the subculture and felt as if a traditional culture of living with housing amenities and utilities was an expense for the rich.
Consequently, Arleen recognizes individuals with whom they share the same deviant subculture. In the Southside area, housing was racially stratified owing to the culture of racial segregation adopted in the 1940s. Arleen finds herself and her family living in a shelter after eviction. After unsuccessfully contacting 89 owners, the 90th proprietor agrees to rent a house to Arleen and her family. However, when a police officer follows Jori after kicking a schoolteacher, the landlord asks the family to move (Desmond, 2016). The owner views the presence of the police officer after one month and a half as a sign for more trouble to follow. The property owner asks Arleen’s family to leave and even refunds her security deposit and rent. In the end, after Trisha abandons Arleen and her children, the family goes to live with a relative.
Larraine’s Family
Larraine lives in a trailer park at the far side of the south side. Larraine has two daughters and a grandson who live in the same area. Larraine spends 77% of her income on rent only and has to forgo other basic needs. She instead uses her money on food stamps and other luxurious items. Larraine avoids living a miserable life despite being poor and uses her money to buy luxurious things to make her happy. Larraine is evicted from her trailer and goes to live with her brother Beaker (Desmond, 2016). After missing a welfare meeting, her food stamps are cut off, and she has to depend on her brother. When her food stamps are reinstated, she goes on a shopping spree and purchases expensive food. When Larraine’s brother leaves to go to a subsidized house, Larraine is unable to pay $1000 in back rent to Beaker’s trailer since she has already spent a similar amount on storage fees for her household items (Desmond, 2016). She ends up living with Ms Betty after having no luck in getting a housing program in the private market.
Analysis of Larraine as a character shows that there is conflict in the society. Conflict perspective dictates that in a community where resources are scarce, individuals compete for available resources (Turner, 2012). Tobin made a fortune as a landlord that focused on the poor. He did not give the poor like Larraine ample time to cover their debts since he knew that there was stiff competition for space on his trailer park. The trailer park had a vacancy rate of 4%, meaning that many families opted to pay for fees for parking on someone else’s land instead of renting a home (Desmond, 2016). Tobin treats the tenants without regard for their welfare since he implicitly wants to make a profit. The landowner even uses other tenants as repair people whenever an individual vacates a premise leaving behind a trailer. He pays the handymen fees that are lower than the essential minimum for a repairperson in the state. Tobin uses the power that he has to exploit poor innocent tenants willing to do anything g to survive. When Larraine is evicted, she spends a lot of time applying for public housing in more than 40 areas. The competition for such housing takes a significant period before the review of all applications. Larraine has to live with her brother for sometime before approval of her application takes place.
Doreen Hinkston’s Family
Doreen Hinkston is the mother to Patrice, Natasha, CJ and Ruby who all live in Sherrena’s Apartment. The mother faces significant backlash and trouble from the apartment owner. Her daughter Patrice is evicted and moves downstairs to live with her. The family is forced to move back to their childhood home after Doreen stops getting SSI and State sanction child support, making it hard to afford the five-bedroomed house (Desmond, 2016). From a social perspective, functionalism plays an integral part in the situation that the family faces (turner, 2012). Doreen’s children had not completed high school despite the state providing education to children. The state provided education to children, even paid SSI and state-funded child support. The country wished to provide education and support to children so that they could finish school and work to assist their parents as well as the state.
Furthermore, lack of proper housing made it difficult for the children to read and excel in school. Doreen faces significant conflict with Sherrena since she does not wish to pay for repairs in the house. Doreen is forced to spend her rent money to cover for repairs in the home. When she deducts the charged amount from the rent, she ends up in a conflict with Sherrena who takes the tenant to eviction court. Doreen is forced to pay $2400 to avoid eviction from the apartment (Desmond, 2016). Consequently, the family lives in a rat hole that caused considerable damage to the grades of the children and their routine. The children opt to spend most of their time outside the house to avoid the smell and the condition of the home (Desmond, 2016). The social construct established by the government had proved useless in the situation; thus, the family suffered because of lack of education and resources to cater for a family of seven individuals. However, when Doreen’s family manages to move to Tennessee, Patricia finishes her GED and gets a job as a social worker proving that functionalism prevailed in the family (Desmond, 2016). The family found it easier to progress once it found a new home that did not distract the children or the parents.
Overall, the three families provided useful insight into the various problems that families face because of housing problems. Tenants suffer at the expense of proprietors who are only interested in making a profit. The three social constructs also showed how different families were faced with varying problems despite living in the same neighborhood and facing similar challenges. Above all, the study showed that many Americans spent over 80% of their housing income on rent, actively depended on the government for housing vouchers and food stamps, and suffered on the waiting list for public housing thus opting for private housing options.
References
Desmond, M. (2016). Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American city. Broadway books.
Turner, J. H. (2012). Contemporary sociological theory. Sage.