Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2016

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-20

Chapter 21-About This Project

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Homes versus Houses

The idea of a home is powerful in Evicted. Every time someone lands a place of their own to move into, genuine jubilation follows. Yet, the way “home” versus just a “house” operates is more complicated, and their respective relationships to the people living in a rented property are more problematic and nuanced than at first glance.

As Desmond says in the Epilogue, home is where people can relax, be themselves, and escape from the world. At the same time, he posits home as the beginning of civic life because it’s the connections made with neighbors that allow the productive formation of cohesive communities. Therefore, he feels a home is a right, not a privilege, because out of it a stable society can emerge.

This is not always the case for the people in Evicted, especially as they often confuse a dwelling with a home. Doreen Hinkston does her best to keep her family together in Sherrena Tarver’s duplex, but the conditions there are so unendingly bad the family suffers a psychological malaise as a result. Arleen Belle tells her son bad things keep happening to them because they don’t have a house. Yet, it’s not that they don’t have places to stay, it’s the fact they never have a chance to nest, to make these places their home.

The one person who has a home by the end of the book is Scott Bunker, when he moves into the apartment next to the mall. Yet, while he’s always had a place to stay, the idea of an actual home of his own is so alien he’s convinced it will be taken away from him. This demonstrates the degree to which his drug addiction and poverty have distanced him from the “normal” world and confused the distinction between a house, a place to stay, and a home. That’s why he periodically walks through the mall: to regain the feeling of being in a world full of wonder and promise.

Little

A major portion of Evicted deals with the effects of loss, everything from homes to freedom to money to dignity. One of the most heartbreaking examples is Little, the cat originally owned by Arleen Belle’s sons Jori and Jafaris. The way in which Belle demands her sons give up Little is indicative of how children are forced to suffer in the book.

In the beginning, Little is a welcome addition to the family when they live on Thirteenth Street. He is fun, playful, and affectionate. He is innocent and gives her sons the unconditional love they crave. They are forced to leave him behind, however, when they are evicted yet again and entrust his care to their upstairs neighbor, Trisha.

Later, Belle takes her sons back to Thirteenth Street, and Little is outside. The boys want to play with him, but she won’t let them. It’s not that she doesn’t love Little; at night, she often thinks about him and cries. But love for anything in her mind only leads to heartbreak. By making her sons calloused, Belle thinks she is making them strong. Instead, she is making them walled off and disconnected from the world and the people in it. Yes, Little is just a cat, but he represents the nurturing emotional connection the children in Evicted desperately need yet so rarely receive. As for Little, he is eventually run over in the street by a car and killed.

Family

The families in Evicted often prove to be more of a hindrance than help. In some cases, such as with Arleen Belle, family members may be in no position to help, or, if they can, they are waiting for things to get worse before they do. Larraine Warren, who borrowed money too many times from her daughters without paying it back, just aren’t willing to help. In the case of Scott Bunker, asking for help from family means being honest about who he is and the trouble he’s in. Perhaps not asking at all is the best recourse as dealing with relatives is always a negotiation fraught with family dynamics and history.

One interesting aspect of this in Evicted is how people strive to create new family connections even as old ties fray and fall apart. Crystal Mayberry craves a family even as she has no connection to her own. When living with Arleen, she has her “spiritual” mother from her church she must call for advice. When Crystal briefly lives with Patricia, the woman she meets at a bus stop, she quickly begins to call her “Mom,” until a disagreement causes her to repeatedly stomp her new mom’s face with her foot.

In the end, perhaps blood is not thicker than water. Instead, people must earn the respect and help they need from those around them, family or not. And the way to do this, Desmond might say, is for everyone to have their own stable home to live in. That way, they can be operating in the world from a position of security and strength, as opposed to desperately scrabbling for even the briefest reprieve from the inevitable woe and misery no one can help them avoid.