Community and Interconnection Theme Analysis

Evicted is a work of sociology with a narrative form: it tells the interconnected stories of a network of impoverished people in Milwaukee affected by eviction. Desmond’s choice to focus on this network—rather than on the stories of particular individuals—allows him to show how eviction is a systemic, rather than an individual problem. In this way, he challenges the idea that eviction is the fault of people who have failed to work, make enough money, and be “responsible” tenants. He shows that people, and especially impoverished people, ultimately function as communities rather than as individuals. Eviction destroys community, replacing a positive system of interconnection with a system in which everyone is dependent on one another in an exploitative, mutually harmful way.

In the book, Desmond contrasts two different versions of interconnection, one positive and one negative. The positive form is the system of mutual support and interdependence that exists in neighborhoods, and particularly poor communities. The negative form is the structure of exploitation that means that property owners, loan sharks, moving companies, and other entities profit from the poverty and deprivation of poor tenants. Desmond demonstrates that eviction replaces the positive form of interconnection with the negative one, and argues that this process must be reversed.

Desmond’s portrayal of the negative network of interconnection works to show that eviction actually harms everyone, even the wealthy and powerful. The landlords may be far wealthier than the tenants, but their wealth depends on the exploitation of the tenants’ poverty. Similarly, other groups such as police officers, professional movers, charity workers, lawyers, and politicians are all intimately connected to the system of eviction that has become the norm in American society. Eviction is an ecosystem with many different, intersecting parts that has a harmful impact on everyone it touches (even those whom it also benefits). For example, Sherenna makes huge profits out of her property management business, but is also constantly stressed by the instability and unpredictability of the eviction-dense rental market. By bringing all of the different parts of the negative system of interconnection into view, Desmond makes an even more compelling case for the need to radically change the status quo.

Of course, people like landlords, movers, and police need to be able to earn money and survive like anyone else; yet it is highly problematic when their survival depends on the exploitation of others. In order to change this, the negative network of exploitative interconnection needs to be replaced by the preservation of communities that encourage people to support one another.

Desmond draws on the history of positive interconnection and community to demonstrate that there is an alternative to the destructive network of exploitation in existence today. He cites the anthropologist Carol Stack, who argues that in the 1960s and 1970s, poor black families were “immersed in a domestic web of a large number of kin and friends whom they [could] count on.” Desmond himself argues that “it was next to impossible for people to survive deep poverty on their own,” and proposes that while this system of community support may emerge from desperate circumstances, it is actually a positive thing. At another point in the book, he discusses how poor neighborhoods are kept safe by the presence of certain individuals who know and “watch” the streets, keeping track of residents’ needs and behaviors. This system, which is much safer, more sustainable, and more productive than the alternate model of police surveillance, arrest, and incarceration, is broken by eviction. When neighborhoods are constantly torn apart by people being forced to move in and out on short notice, the community cannot take care of itself. Crime, drug use, poor school performance, incarceration, and suicide ensue.