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A review by jessreadsandrambles
Without a Net: Middle Class and Homeless with Kids in America by Michelle Kennedy
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.5
This was a very clear cut, straightforward account of a middle class mother who becomes homeless and must live out of her car with her three children. It’s interesting because it is fairly clear that she maintains a prejudice against many other impoverished people in similar situations of homelessness. Her tone regarding food stamps and the section 8 housing program makes this pretty clear and definitely suggests she might look down her nose at other people who actually use those services. However, it’s a bit vague on whether this was a bias she has since learned to actively challenge. Despite her opinions or intentions, this manages to showcase incredibly well how flawed this system is.
I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole of negative reviews for this as well. There’s a lot of people rating this low coming off as “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” types of people, often referencing that she is only to blame and that she should have never let it get to the point that her kids were in those conditions. But it’s clear to me that Michelle never claims at any point that she made good decisions or that she was content with her homelessness. In fact, the prologue she refers to her descent into homelessness as “a series of bad judgement calls and wrong decisions” and she regularly blames herself for their situation. Do I think I would’ve made the same decisions in her situation? Or even gotten to that point in the first place? No. But I’ve also never even been close to needing to make those types of decisions. I don’t think she’s a bad mother. The bottom line is that she did the best for her kids in the only way she knew how and my opinions on her actions are irrelevant.
I’m not sure I love her style of writing but the story is worth reading. Especially as we enter a recession and a housing crisis and more and more people are pulled into a cycle of poverty that will be increasingly more difficult to break.
I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole of negative reviews for this as well. There’s a lot of people rating this low coming off as “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” types of people, often referencing that she is only to blame and that she should have never let it get to the point that her kids were in those conditions. But it’s clear to me that Michelle never claims at any point that she made good decisions or that she was content with her homelessness. In fact, the prologue she refers to her descent into homelessness as “a series of bad judgement calls and wrong decisions” and she regularly blames herself for their situation. Do I think I would’ve made the same decisions in her situation? Or even gotten to that point in the first place? No. But I’ve also never even been close to needing to make those types of decisions. I don’t think she’s a bad mother. The bottom line is that she did the best for her kids in the only way she knew how and my opinions on her actions are irrelevant.
I’m not sure I love her style of writing but the story is worth reading. Especially as we enter a recession and a housing crisis and more and more people are pulled into a cycle of poverty that will be increasingly more difficult to break.