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What the judge was saying, in essence, was: We all agree that you were poor and scared when you did this violent, hurtful thing, and if you had been allowed to go on working five days a week at Old Country Buffet, refilling soup pots and mopping up frozen yogurt spills, none of us would be here rig…

The worse the Hinkstons' house got, the more everyone seemed to become withdrawn and lethargic, which only deepened the problem. Natasha started spending more time at Malik's. Doreen stopped cooking, and the children ate cereal for dinner. Patrice slept more. The children's grades dropped, and Mike…

The 1968 Civil Rights Act made housing discrimination illegal, but subtler forms prevailed. Crystal and Vanetta wanted to leave the ghetto, but landords like the one on Fifteenth Street turned them away. Other landlords and property management companies--like Affordable Rents--tried to avoid discri…

[...] A healthy chunk of Crystal's money also went into the offering basket the first Sunday of every month.

"I'm sowing seeds," Crystal said [...]

Vanetta held her chilled look. "That's why I don't creep with your church, 'cause they don't have nothing to offer you, but they got a lot to say…

Before her eviction, Beaker had asked Larraine why she didn't just sell her jewelry and pay Tobin. "Of course I'm not going to do that," she said. "I worked way too hard for me to sell my jewelry. ... I'm not going to sell my life savings because I'm homeless or I got evicted." It wasn't like she h…