Read it Forward | Interview with Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted and the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences: "It's heartbreaking. I mean, when you watch a mother decide between buying food for her family or paying the rent, or, after a loved one dies, debating between paying for the funeral or paying the rent, you’re seeing people confront really terrible choices. Poverty is not pretty. Poverty is a very ugly thing."
"We're at a point right now where half of poor renters below the poverty line are spending over 50% of their income on housing and at least one in four is spending 70% of their income on housing. We can’t do anything about inequality if we don’t address that problem....A lot of times when we hear policy and prescriptions about how to ameliorate poverty in the U.S., they are talking about jobs. Good jobs, better jobs, great. But it’s half the solution. We have to address this other thing too."
