Living in America’s Melting Pot While Confronting the Housing Crisis No One Talks About

It’s safe to say that even in America, as a true blooded Indian, I live in my own world of Indian food and Bollywood style parties. What little I understand about how everyone else lives is mostly through shows like Friends, Seinfeld, Sex and the City and movies like Ocean’s Eleven, Good Will Hunting and Shawshank Redemption.

My daily interactions include the cashier at the grocery store (though even that is becoming scarce thanks to e-checkouts), paying for tickets to watch a stand-up show, and listening to comedians pull off self-deprecating jokes about their American ways of life. I hire plumbers on Thumbtack, hire gutter cleaners who knock on my door looking for work, and listen to presentations for window replacement from a group of salesmen, just so I can stay in touch with the southern Georgia accent. I try to attend book clubs, and PTO meetings so I have a diverse portfolio of “friends” to show off to my kids that I’m not as cocooned as they think I am.

And of course, through books and TV shows, I have some idea of how they keep their homes. I get on Nextdoor.com to read through comments on how my neighbors are fighting with each other and with others from other subdivisions around us. You get the point.

On a work trip to Delaware, I was by myself for the whole week at a beautiful hotel room along the Christina River in downtown Wilmington.

I was missing home and decided to spend my evenings walking along the boardwalk. The boardwalk and the riverfront are gorgeous, with people strolling, lounging in patio seating, and restaurants lined up along the water. I walked past beautiful bird feeders and marketplace lights. A group of Christian missionaries stopped me and asked if I would like to know more about what Jesus has to say. I was looking forward to these type of rendezvous with the local people every evening. Because once again, how else can I make my children proud than by showing them how well I’ve assimilated into America’s melting pot, right?

In the mornings, at 8am, I would get in my rental car to go to work a few miles away. And every day I would pass by the grim looking homes along the downtown center of Wilmington. At a particular traffic light, I would always see what must have been the remnants of someone’s eviction process. I would stop here and stare at this long enough for the ones in the back to honk at me as the light would turn green and I had to leave that spot. I would wonder to myself everyday, where is this child who rode that toy jeep now?

As I mentioned before, the reason why I read books is because I have to understand the world that I live in. And one such book that gave me a deeper insight into poverty in America was Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond. Sociologist Matthew Desmond writes a fascinating account, weaving together the stories of struggling families and their landlords, and revealing the close connection between the housing crisis and poverty in America.

Desmond doesn’t just tell stories to show the human impact, he also provides statistical analysis of evictions. The central point he drives home is that evictions worsen hardship by creating a feedback loop of instability, one that becomes almost impossible to escape. Eviction perpetuates the cycle of poverty. When families lose housing, they often lose jobs, stability, community connections, and even their possessions, trapping them deeper in economic hardship.

“Today, the majority of poor renting families in America spend over half of their income on housing, and at least one in four dedicates over 70 percent…”.

This housing affordability crisis means if renters need to keep a roof over their heads, they have little else left for food, healthcare, or transportation. Housing unaffordability isn’t just an economic issue; it literally shapes our children’s futures.

Desmond shows how landlords profit from poverty, as high demand for inexpensive rentals and weak tenant protections reduce incentives to keep rents low or maintain properties. Yet he doesn’t despair, he argues for action. He urges us to consider universal housing vouchers, expand legal aid for tenants, stabilize rent, and recognize stable housing as a fundamental human right.

This underscores how housing stability underpins health, work, education, and dignity. Desmond reminds us that home is more than shelter, it’s where identity and belonging grow.

“The home is the center of life. It is a refuge from the grind of work, the pressure of school, and the menace of the streets. We say that at home, we can ‘be ourselves.’ Everywhere else, we are someone else. At home, we remove our masks.” 

I’m back in my Atlanta bubble, but what continues to haunt me is the underlying truth in his stories. No one wants to live a small life. We all want to thrive, contribute, and belong, not just game the system or eke out a paltry existence. My 17-year-old keeps saying that by the time he grows up, a 400-square-foot home might cost three million dollars, and he’s not sure whether he’ll end up living in my basement.

Something has to change for us to have the most basic right for dignity for every human, the right to a roof, so we can take off our masks and just be ourselves. Even for our birds, we are thinking of gorgeous feeder homes. Come on, we can do better.

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If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished Black neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women. Poor Black men were locked up. Poor Black women were locked out. ~ Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

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The Indian American Life