Matthew Desmond's Work for the Institute for Research on Poverty

“Unaffordable America: Poverty, Housing, and Eviction,” Matthew Desmond, Fast Focus No. 22-2015, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison, March 2015.

http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/fastfocus/pdfs/FF22-2015.pdf

In this research brief, Matthew Desmond explores the crisis faced by poor families in finding and maintaining affordable housing. Drawing from his own extensive ethnographic and quantitative research, Desmond outlines the trends that led to the current situation: rising housing costs, stagnant or falling incomes among the poor, and a shortfall of federal housing assistance. As a result of these trends, most poor renting families now devote over half of their income to housing costs, and eviction has become commonplace in low-income communities. Poor single mothers with young children, particularly African Americans, are at especially high risk of eviction. Desmond reviews the consequences of eviction—for parents, children, and neighborhoods—and concludes with suggested policy remedies and a call to pull housing back to the center of the poverty debate.

“No Place to Call Home: Child and Youth Homelessness in the United States,” Neil Damron,Poverty Fact Sheet No. 9, Institute for Research on Poverty and Morgridge Center for Public Service, University of Wisconsin–Madison, May 2015.

http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/factsheets/pdfs/Factsheet9-Homelessness.pdf

In this fact sheet, prepared by Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP)/Morgridge Center for Public Service UW-Madison undergraduate intern Neil Damron, statistics on child and youth homelessness and recent trends in Wisconsin and the United States are presented. The sheet explores the major challenges faced by homeless minors, and, drawing from recent research by IRP faculty affiliates, looks at the major factors that contribute to a young person or family becoming homeless, including a shortage of affordable housing and rising rents. Also explored is federal legislation that seeks to protect homeless children and youth, and to ensure their access to education while they find permanent housing; and policy suggestions for the future. In conducting his literature review and research, Damron received guidance and mentoring from IRP Affiliate Peter Miller (Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis), and consulted in particular the research of Matthew Desmond (Sociology, Harvard University).