“it is hard to argue that housing is not a fundamental human need. Decent, affordable housing should be a basic right for everybody in this country. The reason is simple: without stable shelter, everything else falls apart.”

American sociologist

Matthew Desmond is an American sociologist and professor at Princeton University. He is known for his work on housing, poverty, and inequality, and for leading the Eviction Lab there. At Princeton, he serves as the Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology and as principal investigator of the Eviction Lab. He was formerly the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2022.