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| Barbara Fields and Matthew Desmond at
HousingWorks RI’s 2016 Fact Book Luncheon |
National best-selling author Matthew Desmond
joined R.I. Housing’s executive director Barbara Fields to discuss the nation’s
housing challenges and Desmond’s first-hand experiences observing evicted
tenants and their landlords. The
discussion was featured during HousingWorks RI’s 2016 Fact Book Luncheon.
In his best-seller Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American
City, Desmond tells the powerful stories of eight families struggling to
survive in the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee. In doing so, he provides key
insights into the importance of housing and its role in creating robust
communities.
"America is the richest
country with the most poverty in the world, if you want to make a dent in
inequality, housing has to be a part of it,” said Desmond, who is a member of
the Harvard faculty and a MacArthur Fellow. Desmond said the rising cost of housing is a burden to
many of the nation's families.
Desmond also noted that only
1 in 4 households eligible for housing assistance actually receive it, despite
the fact that discussions of housing typically focus on publicly-assisted
housing. As a result, most poor families are left to deal with the private
housing market. He highlighted the 20-year waiting list for public housing in
Washington, D.C.
"We have to get serious
about the affordable housing crisis. We are bleeding out. We cannot ask for
band-aid fixes, because we don't have a band-aid problem,” Desmond explained. “We
need to stop asking for crumbs off the table."
