WHEN: Thursday, May 12, 2016, at 6:30 - 8:00 p.m.
WHERE: Java Vino 1505 Losey Blvd. S. La Crosse, WI 54601
BOOK: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
The book is about evictions in Milwaukee and is a New York Times best seller. It is available on Amazon, both as kindle and used. Amazon's book review says as follows:
"It's the rare writer who can capture a social ill with a clear-eyed, nonjudgmental tone and still allow the messiness of real people its due. Matthew Desmond does just that with Evicted as he explores the stories of tenants and landlords in the poorest areas of Milwaukee during 2008 and 2009. It's almost always a compliment to say that a nonfiction book reads like a novel and this one does - mostly because Desmond gets very close to the "characters," relating their words and thoughts and layering on enough vibrant details to make every rented property or trailer come alive. You can almost forget that these are actual people with actual problems until he delivers a raw jolt of reality: the woman who's evicted because her boyfriend beats her up; the tenant whose baby daughter dies in a house fire; the tenant who pushes a "friend" out a window for using all her cell phone minutes; the landlord who refuses to fix stopped-up pipes, so tenants allow garbage and sewage to pile up in the property.
Through both personal stories and data, Desmond proves that eviction undermines self, family, and community, bearing down disproportionately hard on women with children. In Milwaukee, being behind on rent gives landlords the opening to serve an eviction notice, which leads to a court date. On the face of it, it may seem easy to side with the landlords-of course tenants should pay their rent. But as Evicted pulls back layer after layer, what's exposed is a cycle of hurt that all parties-landlord, tenant, city-inflict on one another. Whether readers agree with Desmond's conclusions for how to break this cycle in order to strengthen families and neighborhoods, it's obvious by the end of Evicted that there is no easy fix, and that people-some addicts, some criminals-will slip through the cracks." 

Hope to see you there! 

 
Maureen Kinney (608) 784-5678 maureen@johnsflaherty.com