We Live Here: Detroit Eviction Defense and the Battle for Housing Justice

by Jeffrey Wilson, Bambi Kramer

A graphic novel featuring uplifting stories of combatting—and beating—calls for their eviction in Detroit, showing how everyday people are fighting to stay in their homes, organizing with their communities, and winning.

We Live Here! is a graphic novel biography of the members of the local activist group Detroit Eviction Defense combatting—and beating—calls for their eviction. By illustrating the stories of families struggling against evictions, the book gives a voice to those who have remained in Detroit, showing the larger complexities at work in a beleaguered city. These are everyday people fighting back, organizing with others, going into the streets, and winning their homes back.

What will Detroit look like in the future? Today cheap property entices real estate speculators from around the world. Artists arrive from all over viewing the city as a creative playground. Billionaires are re-sculpting downtown as a spot for tourism. But beyond the conventional players in urban growth and development, Detroit Eviction Defense (DED) members—like others engaged in place-based struggles all over the country—are pushing back, saying in effect, “we live here, we’ve been here, there is no Detroit without us.”

Genres: Graphic Novels, Nonfiction, Politics

240 pages, Paperback

Published April 30, 2024

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Sardonyx · Rating 4 out of 5]

About 5 years ago my partner and I went on a photography tour in Detroit where they take you to abandoned places to take photos. I'm marveled at how many empty or abandoned homes there seem to be in Detroit and how apparently cheap it was to just buy one up. Reading this graphic novel opened my eyes to what was really going on. These homes belonged to real people who through varying situations were forced out of their homes. People's stories conveyed in this graphic novel share situations of mortgage foreclosures, shady bank practises and predatory actions in general. There was an uplifting aspect at least of some people being able to keep their homes through persistent fighting with the banks.

[Ethan Sleeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent way to approach and share these stories of strength and community advocacy. The power of community to force even the most daunting institutions to the table is something that it’s easy to forget, and I appreciated having these stories shared in a way that will hopefully bring that to more people. Purely as a graphic novel, I liked but didn’t love the art and the graphs at the end needed some work to be more legible but overall excellent. Appreciated the notes in the afterward about framing this not as a housing crisis but as the direct result of a concerted, racialized effort to extract value through predatory lending - how we talk about things matters.

Well worth the read if you can find a copy at your local radical leftist bookshop

[Maria Almaguer · Rating 3 out of 5]

An appropriately greyscape graphic rendering of housing issues in the city of Detroit, especially its history during the 2008 recession. The author highlights specific cases of residents who nearly lost their homes, the mission and scope of Detroit Eviction Defense (DED--a group devoted to rescuing homes for residents who have fallen on hard times and tried to work with the banks to keep their homes), and the background of housing issues in urban areas. An informative read about a frightening situation.

[Dale]

Published in 2024 by Seven Stories Press.

The 2008 Financial Crisis and the Great Recession that followed led to a myriad number of local problems all over the United States. In some places, major projects slowed or stopped. In others, manufacturing came almost to a halt. In others, there were so many subprime mortgages issued in that area that the housing market practically collapsed.

Detroit is famously home to tons of auto-related factories and they all slowed dramatically. It was so bad during the Great Recession that the American auto industry had to be bailed out by the federal government. Those job losses left the Detroit economy in a shambles.

On top of that, Detroit was one of the places with simply too many subprime mortgages. It wouldn't have been a problem if Detroit's economy didn't have any hiccups. The problem is that the Great Recession was much, much more than a hiccup - it was like a financial bomb went off in the city.

This graphic novel details the financial troubles that Detroit faced and how many of the subprime loan programs worked, including government supports that simply dried up when the property tax started to dry up. All of these led to an eviction of foreclosure crisis that snowballed across the city.

The best part of the book are the stories of neighbors banding together to prevent foreclosures. They literally blocked streets and called banks day and night urging them to negotiate with their mortgage customers. This should have been a no-brainer - the banks already had a glut of homes in the same neighborhoods. When too many homes are for sale, the prices are driven down so low that the banks may never get their money back.

I do like the idea behind this book - using the graphic novel format to preserve local history. It was a lot more interesting than reading an article about the topic. It was quite effective in telling the story of neighbors that defended their homes because, as the title says, "We live here!"

I did have one complaint - the simple pencil illustrations are fine, but some of the characters look the same and it was hard to tell whose story we were reading about.

I rate this graphic novel 4 stars out of 5.

https://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2025...

[Amy Bergethon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eye-opening depictions of the humans behind the news stories of predatory loans and evictions in the context of an area near where I grew up. The author converted his academic research to a graphic novel in order to reach a non-academic audience, and it worked for me — I likely wouldn’t have read a book on this topic if it wasn’t a graphic novel. As it was, I learned quite a bit and my heart went out to the people in the situations he described. I appreciate stories of people coming together to fight injustice; this one was inspiring, timely, and gives hope.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really touching and inspiring, as well as educational about the housing crisis and eviction protection in Detroit. It gave good strategies and ideas for activism and protest and also demonstrated some really beautiful solidarity. Since it was also a thesis about the systematic efforts that have driven lower rates of Black home ownership, it was also really informative. I teared up!

[Candy · Rating 4 out of 5]

i can't believe i'm first LOL anyways fk predatory loans!! sick book

[D'Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really important project. Wish it had a better illustrator, though.

[Karrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will be the most important book I read all year.

What I’m most upset about is how surprised I am. In 2025.

This will most likely be more important in the next 4 years.

[Camille · Rating 4 out of 5]

Borrowed a digital copy on Libby through my local library; 4 stars.

Found this by chance, just glancing through all the graphic novels available to borrow at the time; it's very interesting and informative, the approach is personal and not too technical. I loved the maps, didn't super love the art style, but that was just personal preference. Overall, a good read.

[Robyn]

Notables 2024 #84