'Evicted' exhibit brings awareness to Milwaukee, where author hopes to continue conversation

Milwaukee will be the first stop on the "Evicted" exhibit's national tour, a visualization of Matthew Desmond's Pulitzer Prize-winning book about how the effects of eviction can destabilize entire communities.

The exhibit will be on view Friday through Sept. 30 at the Mobile Design Box, 753 N. 27th St., with free admission during visiting hours, 5 to 8 p.m. on Fridays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.

Desmond wrote the book after he studied the relationship between eviction and poverty in Milwaukee for nearly a decade. As part of his research, he embedded with several subjects through Community Advocates, first in a battered trailer park and then in a rooming house.

He found that evictions had serious effects on other socioeconomic indicators, such as crime and education, resulting in a rundown community.

“Eviction weakens the social fabric of the neighborhood and lessens our ability to keep our neighborhood safe,” he said.

Desmond said displaying the results from his book in a visual, interactive way will help reach new audiences and even allow children to recognize the issue.

“I think most of the problems that we elevate to the highest degree are represented … through art and visualization,” he said. “It’s a new way to try and tell the story.”

The exhibit will share the sights and sounds of eviction that Desmond was unable to include in his book due to cost and formatting constraints.

The event is being hosted by Near West Side Partners (NWSP), a non-profit organization that serves an estimated 28,000 residents from the Avenues West, Cold Spring Park, Concordia, Martin Drive, Merrill Park, Miller Valley and The Valley/Piggsville neighborhoods. It's funded by Forward Health, Harley-Davidson, Marquette University, MillerCoors and Potawatomi Business Development Corp.

Keith Stanley, a third-generation Milwaukee native who has been NWSP’s executive director for six years, is excited about the exhibit starting in Milwaukee.

“This is an immersive exhibit,” he said. “It has both pictures and audio, and you get the chance to really appreciate what people are going through when they're going through the eviction process.”

Those interactive features were dreamt up by curators such as Sarah A. Leavitt. After reading the book, Leavitt “cold-called” Desmond and pitched doing the exhibit.

"I think he was excited to explore different ways of getting this story out," Leavitt said during a phone interview.

Working with a design team that included an architecture firm and a radio producer, Leavitt included photographs from Sally Ryan and Michael Kienitz that were left out of the book, audio recordings made with participants in landlord-tenant court and a shrink-wrapped pallet of household goods that dramatizes the moment when the evicted family's belongings are dumped outside.

Desmond said seeing those belongings became one of the most memorable experiences he had during the project. “It’s incredibly moving to me to see a pallet of things that a family has lost piled on a crate,” he said.

The plight of his subjects encouraged him to create the Eviction Lab and a website called Just Shelter, which provides a list of resources in home states.

Eviction in Milwaukee

In some ways, Milwaukee has made great strides upgrading the downtown area with new infrastructure and housing.

Community Advocates Chief Operating Officer and Director Maudwella Kirkendoll attributed that development, in part, to awareness brought about by Desmond’s book.

“Since the book has gone out, there is definitely a lot more subsidized development that has come up in Milwaukee,” Kirkendoll noted.

However, those efforts to rebuild have not always reached the neediest areas in the city and when change does sweep through those needy areas, the residents are often swept out as well.

NWSP's Stanley, a Sherman Park resident, said he’s seen the challenges that come with revitalization firsthand and has worked to ensure current residents are not pushed out through eviction. For example, NWSP holds a series of monthly meetings about best practices for multi-unit property owners in the neighborhood, and also runs a resident tenant leadership council, which focuses on resources for tenants.

Stanley said safe, affordable housing is a need which transcends the seven neighborhoods that his group works with.

“It's not just an urban issue,” he said of eviction. “It's a rural issue, it's a suburban issue.”

Kirkendoll said Community Advocates employees spend significant resources to address housing insecurity, including tenant-landlord calls, rental assistance, city building inspectors, domestic violence and support shelters and 110 supportive housing units for the chronically homeless and mentally ill.

Overall, he wants to create a tenant resource center.

Stanley said he hopes that conversations about eviction will continue to inspire action and make those in policy-making positions more aware of the issue:

“What we're most looking forward to is the ability to share the story by those who are challenged by the eviction process,” he said. “Matthew laid the foundation but we're continuing that voice.”

Desmond said that was a crucial part of working with Leavitt and others to create the exhibit.

“I’d like (the exhibit) to spur action, but I’d also like it to spur conversation,” he said. “Milwaukee will always be a central part of the state, so I think that Milwaukee has the opportunity to be a leader on this issue.”

Community Advocates, Street Angels, Milwaukee County's Continuum of Care, Repairers of the Breach, and Milwaukee's 2-1-1 line are all resources for those in need of housing assistance.

Contact Talis Shelbourne at (414) 223-5261 or tshelbourn@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @talisseer and Facebook at @talisseer.