Housing Book Club
The Fall Book Club hosted by the City of Grand Junction Housing Division, will feature the title Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond.
In the book, Evicted, author Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. The book assesses how communities can understand poverty and economic exploitation while providing new ideas for working towards solving housing and houselessness issues. This book explores how even the smallest event can rip through the lives of families and individuals trying to make ends meet sending them out of control. Desmond’s method was to move into the inner city to live amongst some of the poorest people and through the process he interviewed tenants, landlords, officials, and eviction crews. Hear more about the book in the book trailer video in the widgets tab.
Follow along with weekly discussions hosted on this page to provide thoughts about each section.
Housing in Grand Junction
In December 2022, The City formally adopted Housing Strategy 13: Provide Community Engagement and Education Opportunities to Address Housing Challenges and Promote Community Participation (Housing Strategies 1-12). Housing issues are complex and require community engagement and education to ensure that, first, community needs are identified, and secondly, those needs are addressed and prioritized. The Housing Book Club is one way in which the City of Grand Junction is working towards building relationships with community members, providing factual information about the issues in an easy-to-understand format, and working to help find community-supported solutions.
The Fall Book Club hosted by the City of Grand Junction Housing Division, will feature the title Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond.
In the book, Evicted, author Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. The book assesses how communities can understand poverty and economic exploitation while providing new ideas for working towards solving housing and houselessness issues. This book explores how even the smallest event can rip through the lives of families and individuals trying to make ends meet sending them out of control. Desmond’s method was to move into the inner city to live amongst some of the poorest people and through the process he interviewed tenants, landlords, officials, and eviction crews. Hear more about the book in the book trailer video in the widgets tab.
Follow along with weekly discussions hosted on this page to provide thoughts about each section.
Housing in Grand Junction
In December 2022, The City formally adopted Housing Strategy 13: Provide Community Engagement and Education Opportunities to Address Housing Challenges and Promote Community Participation (Housing Strategies 1-12). Housing issues are complex and require community engagement and education to ensure that, first, community needs are identified, and secondly, those needs are addressed and prioritized. The Housing Book Club is one way in which the City of Grand Junction is working towards building relationships with community members, providing factual information about the issues in an easy-to-understand format, and working to help find community-supported solutions.
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Book Club Discussion - Prologue & Chapter 1
3 months agoEach week a new discussion will be featured with questions regarding material from each section of the book. Join the conversation and provide your thoughts and ideas below. As you engage in the conversation, be courteous to others and add value to the topics.
Please be sure to indicate what question you are responding to. We also encourage comments on others' responses as well.
Discussion Questions for Prologue & Chapter 1:
1) Have you or anyone you know experienced eviction? Describe their experience and/or imagine how your life would change if you had to leave your home and possessions.
2) What would happen if your children played a prank like throwing snowballs at cars? Would the chain of consequences likely include your family being homeless? • Would your landlord evict you if someone else damaged your home? Why or why not?
3) What percentage of your income do you pay for housing? If you paid 88% of your monthly income for housing, how would that impact your life? •
4) What do you think of when you imagine a landlord? How does Shereena’s business model and responsibilities/challenges she encounters while managing her properties compare with your perception of a landlord
Susy3 months agoGreetings!
1 comment0Julie D3 months agoQ3
In Washington DC, our family of 3 paid 60% of our take home income to housing. While we felt like we had plenty to buy food and pay Metro fares, I vividly remember feeling like I didn't have enough money to buy new socks for myself. We used our savings to pay for trips to visit family. We didn't take advantage of any of the amazing arts and culture events in our city, unless they were free. If we had to pay 88%...we could afford 2 trips to the grocery store, that's it.
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Chapter 2 & 3 Discussion
3 months agoFeel free to add your thoughts, questions and responses to others.
- After Lamar pays his rent to Shereena, he has $78 left for the rest of the month. How can people move out of poverty when they cannot afford to save and build assets? Try out the Poverty Budget Simulator in the Engage GJ site.
- In Milwaukee, evictions spike in the summer and early fall and dip in November when the moratorium on winter utility disconnections begins. If you were forced to choose between paying rent or heat, which would you choose?
- Tobin lived 70 miles away from the trailer park he owned. How might this kind of distance benefit a landlord? What problems might it create?
- Milwaukee is a segregated city. What impact does a lack of interaction between different walks of life create? How could this separation be changed or alleviated?
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Chapter 4 & 5 Discussion
3 months agoPlease join in a discussion with us. Feel free to answer all or some of the questions and comment on one another's posts as well. Be sure to include the question you are responding to in your post.
Discussion Questions:
1. How is life disrupted for individuals at work and children at school while dealing with the stress of forced relocation?
2. How does someone facing forced relocation save for a security deposit and first month's rent, often in a very short amount of time, if they struggle to make it from one check to the next?
3. What does forced relocation do to the emotional health of a mother and child? How could a classroom teacher and school support a child who is experiencing housing insecurity?
4. How do you make choices with money when there isn't enough? Arleen cares deeply about Jafaris and Jori's education, and Jori's asthma, and works hard to make the apartment a nice home, but must also deal with choices that put the family against the housing. What does this stress do to a mother?
5. What is the effect on a community of tenants living in substandard housing, and on an owner not having the capital to remedy the situation?
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Chapters 6 & 7 Discussion
3 months agoPlease join in a discussion with us. Feel free to answer all or some of the questions and comment on one another's posts as well. Be sure to include the question you are responding to in your post.
Discussion Questions:
1. In Chapter 7, we learn about a landlord training program that Tobin is mandated to attend. Do you think landlord training should be mandatory? Why or why not? What topics do you think should be included in landlord training?
2. Do you think tenants should be required to attend renter training? Why or why not? What might tenant training entail?
3. In Milwaukee, property managers like Lenny have access to a website that provides information about a prospective tenant's prior evictions, criminal convictions, child support disputes, and more, even if cases were dismissed. Do you think landlords should have access to these types of information? Why or why not?
4. Milwaukee doesn't maintain a website that consolidates information about landlords' evictions, code violations, lead poisoning, or property tax payment histories. Should tenants be provided access to information about landlords and their properties?
4. Retaliatory eviction - evicting a tenant for reporting housing problems - is illegal. Some tenants, especially those in month-to-month leases, who are violating their lease for one reason or another, or who are behind in rent, are fearful that they will be evicted if they report unsafe and unsanitary housing code violations to the city. What would you do if you were evicted, or threatened with eviction, for reporting unsafe or unhealthy living conditions?
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Chapter 8 Discussion
3 months agoJoin the conversation and provide your thoughts and ideas below. As you engage in the conversation, be courteous to others and add value to the topics.
Please be sure to indicate what question you are responding to. We also encourage comments on others' responses as well.
Discussion Questions:
1. Sherrena decided to evict Arleen. At eviction court, Arleen agreed to voluntarily move out of the apartment before Sherrena called the sheriff. Do you think these types of voluntary move outs are common? Why or why not? Have you or someone you know ever had to "move out" in this way? What was the affect?
2. Unlike in criminal court, in civil court, poor people have no right to an attorney. Accordingly, in many housing courts around the country, 90% of landlords have attorneys and 90% of tenants do not. Do you feel this should be a service that is provided? Why or why not?
3. Money judgments stay on a tenant’s credit report for ten years, preventing property purchases and damaging credit. Rent Recovery Service, a debt collection service, claims to help tenants get back on their financial feet while charging high-interest rates. Do you feel that these types of programs are helpful? Why or why not? Do you feel that other types of services may be beneficial? -
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Session 2: Discussion Questions
3 months agoDiscussion Questions from Section 1 for Wednesday (9/20) and Tuesday (9/26)
1. After Lamar pays his rent to Shereena, he has $78 left for the rest of the month. How can people move out of poverty when they cannot afford to save and build assets?
2. The book describes Milwaukee to be very segregated, would you say there are similarities in Grand Junction with segregation (among neighborhoods, race, age, economic status)? Why or why not? What impact does a lack of interaction between different walks of life create? How could this separation be changed or alleviated?
3. How did Tobin benefit from offering his tenants the “Handyman Special” (page 46)—giving families their trailers for free but charging them for lot rent? Why might tenants see this as a better deal than paying the equivalent in rent? How did the high demand for low-cost housing impact Tobin’s decisions about whether or not to repair property or forgive late payments? What incentives could be put in place to motivate landlords to maintain their properties? What risks do tenants take when filing a report with a building inspector? The Grand Junction Housing Division addresses this in housing strategy number 8: Provide financial support to existing housing and homelessness services and promote resident access to services. (to be expanded on more during meeting)
https://www.gjcity.org/DocumentCenter/View/4541/Grand-Junction-Housing-Strategy-PDF?bidId=
Who's Listening
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Housing Manager
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SP
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Housing Specialist
LHEmail housing@gjcity.org
FAQs
In-Person Group Discussion Opportunities at Mesa County Library
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September 06 2023
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September 12 2023
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September 20 2023
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September 26 2023
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October 04 2023
Videos
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Click here to play video Evicted Book Trailer BOOK TRAILER: Matthew Desmond’s EVICTED looks at the eviction epidemic in America, and the sobering facts of how housing costs impact poor families. If we want to erase poverty, we must address the lack of affordable housing. Learn more about EVICTED here: http://evictedbook.com/