Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

This searing, heartbreaking book tells the story of poverty today, and the people who live it Arleen spends nearly all her money on rent but is kicked out with her kids in Milwaukee's coldest winter for years. Doreen's home is so filthy her family call it 'the rat hole'. Lamar, a wheelchair-bound ex-soldier, tries to work his way out of debt for his boys. Scott, a nurse turned addict, lives in a gutted-out trailer. This is their world. And this is the twenty-first century- where fewer and fewer people can afford a simple roof over their head. From abandoned slums to shelters, eviction courts to ghettoes, Matthew Desmond spent years living with and recording the stories of those struggling to survive - yet who won't give up. A work of love, care and humanity, Evicted reminds us why, without a home, nothing else is possible.

2015 MacArthur 'Genius' award winner Matthew Desmond is an associate professor of sociology and social science at Harvard University and co-director of the Justice and Poverty Project. He is the author of the award-winning book On The Fireline and his writing has appeared in The New York Times and Chicago Tribune.