The housing crisis
Typically, when people think of the housing crisis, the first imagery to come to mind is the collapse of the house market, but this book focuses on the quieter underside of that imagery. With fewer people able to live in their houses, and without a healthy economy to help secure new living situations, the apartments become overcrowded. With the financial crisis in full bloom, the apartments have the option of removing people who cannot afford the full rent. Statistically, the landlords tended to remove African-American families first.
The winter
The wet, miserable imagery of snow and sleet, of bitterly cold nights in the street is not just theoretical imagery. That is the real life that faced the Bell family who lost their apartment in the 2008 financial crisis. Plus, for those who aren't familiar with how winter gets in the north, temperatures in the negative degrees are not infrequent in towns like Milwaukee. The winter is not just romantic imagery; it means a real chance of dying. In northern cities, it is very common that low temperatures result in deaths among the homeless population.
Home and family
The imagery of home and family is what is at stake in these financial gambles. When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gambled with their home loans, it was good, honest people and their homes and families that were at stake. When the housing market collapsed, that mean evictions for millions of people. Some were unlucky and lost their house, but some weren't even able to own a house in the first place. To be in the renting class and to lose one's apartment might mean not being able to get a place in the future, and to raise two sons in the projects is a fate no mother wants for her boys.
Castes and class instability
What happens when honest and hard-working people are no longer able to make ends meet? The unfortunate reality of the situation is that there are important business people making decisions that affect the entire housing market who rarely see justice, while the real people of this book suffer. It isn't the rich and powerful who are affected by the housing market collapse; it is the poor who are unable to make ends meet. The class balance in America is already tedious and inefficient and many people fall through the cracks. This book shows some of those people and what it means for a renter to be evicted. If not for Tarver's generosity, Sherenna would have ended up permanently homeless or on government support that could mean putting her sons in the path of gang activity.
