Arleen thanked Pan. Getting off the phone, she thanked Jesus. She smiled. When she smiled she looked like a different person. The press had loosened its grip. From landlords, she had heard eighty-nine nos but one yes. Lori accepted his mother’s high five. He and his brother would have to switch schools. Lori didn’t care. He switched schools all the time. Between seventh and eighth grades, he had attended five different schools—when he went at all. At the domestic-violence shelter alone, Lori had racked up seventeen consecutive absences. Arleen saw school as a higher-order need, something to worry about after she found a house.

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City