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the spiral of the downward edge. ... >> i am pleased to welcome mat you to discuss his book effected which is just out already generating a much-needed conversation about poverty in america in the role that the victim plays to created dahmer's spiral for those already on the economic edge. the devastating effects of women and children are hit ball hardest. to research the bookie immersed himself in the poorest communities of milwaukee to portray his

characters that sometimes there beats like a novel. the reviews are outstandingifulr and has drawn comparisons of another powerful work "the new york times" calls this extensively researched and and ignore a ball that it will no longer be possible to have a serious discussion about poverty without a serious discussion about housing. the winner of the 2015 macarthur genius is the author of several other books that he chronicles from northern arizona. and the co-director of the justice and poverty project. [applause] >> it is such an honor to be

here that is so special to the city it is an honor to be here. thanks for coming out it is so good to see the people in the audience.e i appreciate you taking time not of your schedule. there are two chairs right here. right here for you. [laughter] just do it. we're already making a difference. this book is based on "in-depth" fieldwork that i

started in milwaukee with those living in poore neighborhoods spending timeg with people getting ejected in moving into a portrait airpark i live there for about five months then i lived in a rooming house in the inner city traditionally african-american pour neighborhood and i lived there for about nine or 10 months. the lin i embedded myself in the lives of those of extremely hard situations and went to eviction court and follow them to the shelters in to put myself deeply as i could in their everyday life to understand this i had to get their perspective.

the landlord was doing the evictions to collect the rent so when this was happening and was coming up with questions how often does eviction have been?help me so we went looking for d steadies' and found basically nothing no real good data so i decided to give myself. we would survey over 1,000 renters millions of 911 the calls to put it in concertrt with what i see on the ground to figure out what is killing on and all those methods kept the other honest. but this book was swept up

in the process of eviction some are white or black or have children or don't. my neighbor at the trailer park plaza and grandmother had to decide paid the rent or the gas bill to take a hot shower. with the gregarious role model the disabled singlerd dad the imam of three kids who never had a criminal record that then was desperate to keep her family housed so participated in a botched armed robbery to get some money to pay the landlord. i cannot tell you about all of them i will tell you about one of them. it had been a difficult year arleen 14 year-old son was throwing a stubble of passing cars and they

smacked a car and it stopped in the man jumped out therein decide to lock the door but he kicked it is broken down into a fully left before anything happened but with the landlord found out she evicted them toward the machine property. so she took her two sons to the salvation army homeless shelters you could say i am staying at the lodge like it is a hotel and started to found another house on q 19th there was no water it had to bucket out the toilet for 525 though full house was my favorite place we know those that get evicted relocate to substandard housing which has a bad

effect on the kids. hunt obe unfit for human habitation in day boarded up the windows and doors in she was on the hunt again she says retake whatever we canteve get that is what neighborhoods election in housing looks like.was a have said she did gay apartment complex but it was a haven for drug dealers and was terrified for her boy raised especially those who would talk to anyone. so she moved was important to understand how she ended up in said judge tough neighborhood into from poor neighborhoods to even poorer or even more dangerous.

then she found a two-bedroom duplex on 13th the door had to be locked the carpet was filthy but she put on a good face she hung curtains and it closed up the whole. into one of of worst neighborhoods $550 to take 80 percent of her welfare check. 88% at the beginning of every month is gone.as on and she is not alone to spend the majority of what she has on housing we have reached a point for most low in, renters spent the most on housing one other four are spending 70% to pay rent

under these conditions it is an oasis from personal responsibility but in the 2000 that housing costs or that many of us you don't live in the trailer parks don't think they benefit from public housing but the opposite is true one at a for households that qualify a preceded. that arrangement would be unthinkable with other social services and that if we turn away three and four families that a playful -- apply for food stamps but that is how we treat housing in the waiting list is counted in decades not years of uri single-parent and apply today you might be al

grandparents by the time the application comes up. most families are getting nothing from the government living unassisted so on 13th street she found paid in the basement and painted the walls that not long after her sister died not biological the spiritual she decided to contribute to the funeral she did not have the money should have felt ashamed if she didn't. the next month she missed the appointment with a welfare caseworker because it was mailed to the 19th street her $628 a month wasot tp cut to be two months behind she got the eviction summons

so milwaukee has 105,000 households so roughly 16,000 people every year that is 40 people a day effected in the city of milwaukee they're all made the formal court order evictions but there are other ways for a landlord to displace a family a landlord will pay you $200 to use is meant to be held by sunday. we worked really hard to capture all those things be informal evictions the don't go to the court landlord foreclosures when you add up all of those one at of eight

printers is evicted it is incredibly high it is similar in kansas city and chicago according to the most recent data 2.8 million households in the united states would be evicted but the face of this epidemic belongs to mothers and children you will see row after row of low income african-american muslims like arlene r. evicted at high rates one of five black women will be evicted and some time in their life this is a startling number if we

have this incarceration of the typical critical experience depiction is the feminine equivalent to reshape the lives of low income african-americannd if women it affects immigrant communities and add something is going on all over the country they report at least 50 percent of income on housing costed depiction court the commissioner gave two extra days for each of her too dependent kids said she had to be out on an early day in jail you very. it was called the weathermen said it was the coldest day in a decade temperatures

would bottom out at 40 below the issue waited any longer they could call the sheriff to pile hers sayings of the sidewalk her meat cuts in the freezer the asthma machine so she left to a homeless shelter and once again began searching for housing she applied 20 apartments than 40 then 60 then 80. i counted.h. she was accepted to abandon them most were out of reach even the inner-city those that she could afford were not a cali back him part of the recent is biloxi be a big ship records are published of live for free for anyone to see so they a

can rejected with their recent depiction record that is why they're pushed into the worst neighborhoods. so finally member navy said yes a one-bedroom apartment 525 she didn't consider the place a house is a house. two months after her a in court period she moved into a new place she liked it. all the lights had fixtures it was nice once everything was inside she sat down on the floor and found a garbage bag to lead against it% next her in a state like

that for a long time.ng pictu she got herself out ofma storage she had a little sign put up over the sink but then joey started to act out in school is hard to me 14 and experience long stretches of homeless this he had been to five different schools between seventh and eighth grade one day a teacher snapped at him and he kicked her in the shin and ran home instead of calling the principal she called the police when they followed him home the landlord found out and told her she had to go. she told me after that it is like i have the curse

sometimes my body is trembling ion fixing to have a nervous breakdown everybody tries to shut down.icted publishing a study to show that mothers were evicted the experience higher rates of depression two years after the event in rigo between 2005 and 2010 rents were going up suicide to eviction in foreclosure doubled i wish my life were different if i were the old lady i could sit back to look at my kids in the they become something to remember stuff like this.

and we will laugh at it to. the hold is the center of life the refuge the protection at home we can be yourselves everywhere else we're somewhere else thes language spoken all over the world not just a shelter about warmth and safety and family but eviction that used to be rare in this country is coursing through the american cities and isn't just a condition of poverty but because of it cannot fix it the best fix housing so what do we do? is do the way to answer that question requires us do we

believe housing is a fundamental right? of what it means to be american is to have access to safe and decent housing. we have affirmed the right to a basic education because we have agreed as a society fundamental to human flourishing it is hard to argue that housing is fundamental and everything else falls apart in the way we can deliver of this obligation to take a programes we already have and expand it to meet the needs of all families living above the up poverty line. if you have a voucher you

can take it is in a 70% you paid 30% with the voucher to cover the rest can live forever you would like it would change the face of poverty homelessness would drop with the families receive been vouchers after years aided years on the waiting list they go to the courage to store and buying more food their children become stronger and less anemic the lot of kids today cannot eat because the rent eats first. that is wrong for the affordable national housing program from human capital investment with the public health initiative rolled into one.

this is one of many policy recommendations that can be thrown at the problem. let the others come one city has to build another house to tear down that the way out of the mess once saying is clear that this endorsement is not us know american value is justified t new ethical teaching or whole lease structure to allow our nation to become. thanks for coming. [applause]

>> this is more of aof tax expen statement but in 2014 there is $180 billion of tax expenditures for deductions for people like most in this room who have mortgages to deduct the interest and real-estate taxes and when they sell their house they get a break from capital gains. >> you are right.the poor. we have universal housing program in this country it is just not for the port. and i think for middle-class americans that is a road to stability that we need to be

honest that the majority of the tax dollars with respect to housing go to the r six-figure incomes and assuming that they cannot afford to do more it is in for lack of resources. >> as a native from milwaukee i and curious to your connection and why you chose this.. i haven't read the book yet. >> i loved milwaukee there is something about that city that makes me feel at home but the story of urban america can be written inse the margins from the city's reconsider our biggest

failure but if you write a story about an american experience from cleveland and kansas city it gives a good shot at this it tells a very american story. >> to questions. in the conversation about homelessness men are depicted as unsympathetic so can you humanize them a little bit of are they also rational in the system or do we characterize them as enemies? what do you think

ethnography does? >> the book works really hard to complicate the relationship between the landlord a and than it will allow ourselves to have a lazy conversation if we just say they are irresponsible or they are greedy she lien. noticed the kids didn't have food and went to the grocer's store to buy food000 ba how many of us would lose by for dollars and be okay with that? they do take it directly she had a firebomb thrown through her office window in sox put down the sink with the water turned on and then

move out she also makes it a single month more than what are the mix in a single year and that is the fact. when i lived in day traneight part period thought it was important to understand how much my landlord was making a list of the vacancies in thets missing payments electricity bill i could go off and on the landlord of the worst trade their park of 131 trailers makes over $470,000 in profit after expenses every year. that is 30 times with his tenants make it over 50 tomes and other disability. are we okay with that? is that something we should tolerate? that is something we need to have a public conversation

about. the second question about "in-depth" reporting is telling people stories or the cost of social problems how was that connected to reform? it is deeply connectedome getting out of the way of the story. to come through and document what she is going through the terrible decisions in the effect this has with her parenting into bonds her capacity to reduce this person who was born for better things and is deeply connected to policy reform and housing specifically we see this generation after generation who showed us the degradation so this book is

in that spirit and tradition >> can you talk about why this disproportionately affects black women? >> it is a big question receive your ongoing prevalence of racial discrimination in thete housing market with a study after study i will tell you one story.ng with to african-american women who were both policy and looking for housing on the sell side of milwaukee i was in the car watching her kids and she tells me right after words anybody who has three young kids she said to

have another place with the bath tub yes the rent is the statement then stopped himself blakey remembered something in reached for his coated had a fake conversation but it just rented. so i wrote down the number i called him the next day i told him and made the same amount in nine had three kids do have a place with the bathtub and he drove me to it. it happens a lot that is why she has to go through 80 places. that is real. in the role of the kids, but that would shield people but it exposes them we see this

about the snowball and the majority at school be surveyed those to know why you were effected but not you? a household income in all sorts of things that our relative to that question that you live with kids or landlo then it triples said the landlord says seven rather work with you than you propose so there is to pieces and a lot more needs to be said. >> i am carious of your influences but there is nono statistical analysis.

>> the traditional end of people those that are writing about poverty from the ground level have a deep mark.stablished said to have a long and established tradition related to urban poverty. that african-american men in this city incredibly and >> thankional the brilliant that is one of my favorites i have to say. brings out

>> your presentation and power point display brings out the brutality of the evictions. and the cost when you walk by the sight when there has been an. [null] not just their belongings but their life so that raises say practical question but none the less a question because what is on the street is not just furniture but the baby pictures and mementos that will never be recovered by the time the person gets back they are destroyed or gone. there was a time in the city

where the city would pick up the belongings and store them.it >> so the one thing i did b not realize going into it you don't just lose your home but your possessionsnd you are given two optionsn two a your things are thrown on the sidewalk or the track means it is taken by the movers and stored in bonded storage that means and then it goes up every month after that so it is the business and spend a lot of time with moving companies the owners told me 70 percent are just

thrown in the dumpster eviction is a race of the possessions. >> i appreciate the but i know the neighborhoods that you talk about can you talk about the impact on the kids and schooling for those in the trailer homes? >> it is said deep and the jagged scar on the next generation. living in a homeless shelterer outside of town the reason is that is how she did it when she found a home she

got the kids in school but then there was a crisis that would be merged again and again we cannot allow kids to reach their full potential if we keep taking them around to schoolses have en because mom doesn't have enough food to last because so much is spent on housing we need more research but it is obvious that this is fundamental to a improving education. >> thank you so much for the incredibly powerful presentation. i am curious if anyone has approached you about lifting these up in other venues? and be other question what do we do about it?

we can do without the vouchers but is anybody taking up that mantle? those are two fundamental questions. >> my wife and i started an organization called just shelter. just a shelter.org.gs [laughter] this is not a set up.emphas it does two things but it highlights the role of the nonprofits with a lot of the work of affordable housinghis md sulfuric d.c. or nebraska but what we are doing here is allowing people to tell

their own eviction stories so i get letters from those of t to say this is my story. id we have to broadcast that. said few of experienced foreclosure and to review the human cost of the crisis so that is what we're doingwi to scale up.ry policy makers when confronted with the fact this has the worst poverty we respond by saying jobs. every clinton wants to raise wages but we need to

recognize is poverty is not just of those markets so we need to address this from multiple angles but without solving and addressing the housing crisis in the other solution will fall flat. >> i find it to be amazing what you layout., you obvi it just staggers me but i want to ask you let to a certain level with the people they interviewed did you think of moving on to the next level of politicians or members of

the state legislature? because i see them to influence and defect policy f only if this information is pushed into but there are no easy answers as you are well aware of that but whatla forceful methods can be used to make the population aware ? with these elections now i don't hear the word poverty mentioned very much in we are going to hear that.

>>. >> i am writing a book with every conversation like this. so we're having a conversation with those various political persuasions and they want to do something about it. so we took along the slums and we won the battle and i

was in the trailer park when i didn't have hot hot water i said i am a writer and i will write about you so imagine my neighbors. so with a huge leaps forwardardo in now that is another huge problem it is harder to afford a roof over their head. so one very important thing you can do to families facing eviction so in many 9 housing courts don't have lawyers and those to do so if they don't have a high-school education so would you go? i don't know.ws up.

70% of cases nobody shows up and in the stamp signaling the judgment and we can change that to provide legal assistance to stem the tide for the evictions downstream. >> but when you approach higher level politicians such as members of the maryland legislature were they responsive or they have more important issues? we did not know the depth

and extent of this program. here is a lot we have to move with this message of housing. >> i am also from milwaukee. [laughter] but i live here in a go back every two years in october before the election to canvass including the neighborhoods that you speak

of the i am stuck instant by from what i see in that city where 20 years ago you could get a welding job to make $8 an hour or $10 an hour but i sey that is all over. the political consequencesve ben when i go door to door is a tremendous effort especially around the bombing campaigns.they are every your i go back parergon they are boarded up.

that can use speak to the political consequences of the destruction of the community. >> some neighborhoods it milwaukee have been extremely high e evictions, rate one out of four households in thee neighborhood so how do we build a community with that how do we allow people to invest in their community? so you are right with those political consequences also the fact these neighborhoods had sped neglected for decades there is a lot of suffering and those that see so clearly their neighbors

pain in which you have to it is harder to see the potential to your right to milwaukee lost more jobs sale of the great depression but i want to say that i saw that in alliance isosceles in the brilliancy and generosity and courage so one time we were at the salvation army homeless shelter there were homeless and eating lunch at mcdonald's downtown. the boy walked inland he was nine and looked really bad.and

yo went looking for scraps and crystal turned in said would you got?nd these two homeless woman put their money together and bought him lunch and gave him a hug incentive on hise thah way when he left she said i wished i had a home i would take him in.le sova reminds me how people refuse with their hardships. >> thinks for bringing this forward this people will not be required to have that picture identification to vote this will be impossible and we will see the

consequences how can we have government id even literally you don't know where you're living next month? >> i am not from milwaukee. [laughter] i would like to point to you back because it is interesting as a policy pressure to change the way and there was that question about humanizing the landlords so as the professors and are worrieden about poverty the riverside history of the males who have continually going to the inner-city while being

very helpful to perpetuate and reproduce the norms by strategizing those communities so personally how do you wrestle with lifting up while continuing to humanize those for the policy changes. >> the ethnographers has a much duty to write about life in its full complexity as it is their ability to do so so that means human suffering and in human courage about the mistakes but also the generosity. these stories are some extremely serious for me it

is one of the deepest and profound owners of my life. -- n so to put in this book one thei i was with the family and housing was tough.n in the m and it was february. day try to go to the basement because the heat was off if i could do something with the furnace. i don't know what i am doing. kick the furnace or something. [laughter] they bought me a birthday cake. in writing about their lives in the way helps us to see

the full trauma and sadnessgnize to validate it recognizes the ambiguity and complexity also to stay close contact with those in the book so i went over every part of theit. book some people read it to me as he had long conversations metal the for getting the facts right. >> good evening ina washingtonian first of all,el thank you and congratulate you and encourage you is you

have highlighted either action as a very powerful summed up - - symbol tofo embrace affordable housing. working on this for a long time with 500 units of affordable housing in downtown washington and i would like to encourage you to identify low of that hill or several of the eviction it's s is a powerful story but to have a major hearing on affordable housing then is so dramatic end to

encourage that is all i am saying to put the idea out powel there that is such a powerful tool to tell the story then needs to be a high-profile and i will door everything that i can toe move forward to rally support if there needs to be legislation that addressesindiv that i encourage you and i bless you and i pray for you >> thank you so much. [applause] >> i have a simple question

so who becomes a landlord? that i want to run and a apartment or own a trailer park? how does that happen? what is their story? >> is in their blood so to speak to get a foothold in middle-class america so on the sell side a place called polish flat spade jack up the house is rented out so they would earn some extra money so that tradition has been passed down although her landlord was not a

second generation but but they share that kind of quality with an idea to strike out into nothing with their own gumption it is like a stomach at&e difficult work. >> i showed up a little late. i am from washington d.c. and i have covered housing as a reporter. so the clinic for the homeless a fight in the landlord tenant court to fight the d.c. government they fight the homeless shelter where people sleep in the hallways were abandoned buildings sortt

trash cans to be physically assaulted that is where we live we live and their rich our place with the gentrified 14th street put the families in the abandoned hospital and we should remember that. second greatly over the last decade the impact of section 8 and what that did to housing stability that replaced housing and it was the unstable way. >> we could have the 50 combination but for tonight

and what to come back to scale. this is in many cities there is amazing things going on.need. so that is great and awesomeou r we just need something to scale that is a warrior efficient way to do that we to make the program more cost-efficient but this is the best way with the un maliki majority we are bleeding out. but we just need is something.

>> with my friends receive that housing voucher it is like thank you jesus. i can stay in my home or live in my community.ng. they lived in the segregated neighborhoods. i rigo the research is next and the status quo is a bigger incentive if you cannot hold on to your house long enough to hold onto your job that is the bottom-line. >> the issue is the waiting list. >>. >> famous for writing this book.

>> to live in multiple homeless shelters. a look forward to reading your book i have a question since you're talking about children so since the '80s do you have a sense how badly the addiction rates have changed throughout the country's? do you have a sense whether or not it is expanding as a field of study? >> thanks for sharing that it does take courage and it is a beautiful thing you can own that.

[applause] i feet there are a lotth better doing work on poverty of mass incarceration in the journalist writing about this today those that circleof the wagons and to make a big impact the first question was about trauma or the paid nor the shame that is something i have experienced the family was for ) was a sophomore in college without a political mine said i was

just embarrassed when they showed the manuscript but i also see a lot of mistakes. and then she is addicted supported that narrative is to refrain those that we all make mistakes those consequences are modified.fecti into show not tens or hundreds of thousands but a new way of understanding this not to cause shape or embarrassment and national crisis.

>> there is not a lot of good data. so i am working really hard right now.evisions i so looking up in recent years with the 30's to the '40's eviction and looks scandalous and then to move the family back that is how it used to be there is thee '30's editorial page is the three families are effected in the bronx but only 1,000 showed up to protest that is what used to be like there

are hundreds said data screening companies that collect information from sun up to sundown in to be used to the effects so we need effec you but it is getting worse. >> with what your experience has been i invite you to rally tomorrow morning at 10:00 the coalition for non-profit housing at the methodist church the marrow vitter -- the mayor will be there and it is our opportunity the mayor is committed.

>> faq you heard it easier. [applause] >> they key is so much. spec 48 hours of nonfiction authors to cover the of wide array books on history in biographies. >> one of the few places to see a and here perspectives on different topics and though she may not know so well but we have a story to tell to bring that opportunity