Download or read book Homelessness written by Neil Larry Shumsky and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-01-16 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an unflinching investigation of homelessness in the United States—a problem that has been with us since the arrival of the first English settlers nearly 400 years ago. The terms historically used to describe them include "bums," "hoboes," "migrants," "street people," "transients," "tramps," and "vagrants." Just as varied as the words we have used to describe them are the reasons many people have found themselves living in the land of opportunity without permanent residence. The book considers homelessness and its distinctive character in three periods of American history: the era of tramps and hoboes in the late 1800s–early 1900s, the era of transients and migrants in the 1930s, and the era of homeless and "street" people in the last 40 years. It clarifies the multiple meanings of the word "homeless" today and demonstrates that homelessness is a symptom of more than one problem, leading to confusion about the issue of homelessness and hampering attempts to reduce its occurrence. Author Neil Larry Shumsky, PhD, also postulates that the treatment of homelessness in England before the colonization of North America laid the foundation of pervasive American attitudes and practices.
Download or read book Homelessness written by Xina M. Uhl and published by 'The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc'. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Homelessness pervades America's cities and rural areas. Multiple factors force people into a life on the street, including job loss, mental illness, and drug addiction. Homelessness can happen to anyone, regardless of age, gender, marital status, and race. While it's important for societies to provide shelter, food, and support for homeless people, it's even more necessary to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. Young readers will benefit from this guide's concise language, vivid photographs, and helpful graphics. All readers will enhance their understanding of the factors that affect homelessness in America.
Download or read book Criminal of Poverty written by Lisa Gray-Garcia and published by City Lights Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A daughter’s struggle to keep her family alive, through poverty, homelessness and incarceration Eleven-year-old Lisa becomes her mother’s primary support when they face the prospect of homelessness. As Dee, a single mother, struggles with the demons of her own childhood of neglect and abuse, Lisa has to quickly assume the roles of an adult in an attempt to keep some stability in their lives. “Dee and Tiny” ultimately become underground celebrities in San Francisco, squatting in storefronts and performing the “art of homelessness.” Their story, filled with black humor and incisive analysis, illuminates the roots of poverty, the criminalization of poor families and their struggle for survival. "Criminal of Poverty lays bare the devastating effects of inheriting a life of poverty, as well the real redemption and power in finding your voice." – Michelle Tea, author of Rose of No Man's Land and Valencia "Tiny’s indomitable spirit comes to life in her amazing story of poverty and homelessness, reaching into and teaching our hearts and minds. With her flawless descriptions of the pain of living in the margins of the richest country in the world, she opens up an important window onto a reality looked upon by many but truly seen by few, augmenting our capacity for empathy and action in an area so in need of social change. Bravo Tiny, for your gift to us all! Punto!!!" – Piri Thomas, author of Down These Mean Streets
Download or read book Paths To Homelessness written by Doug A Timmer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The major theme in this book is that people are homeless because of structural arrangements and trends that result in extreme impoverishment and a shortage of affordable housing in U.S. cities. It explains the economic and historical causes of homelessness with accounts of individuals and families.
Download or read book Down and Out in America written by Peter H. Rossi and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-11-22 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most accurate and comprehensive picture of homelessness to date, this study offers a powerful explanation of its causes, proposes short- and long-term solutions, and documents the striking contrasts between the homeless of the 1950s and 1960s and the contemporary homeless population, which is younger and contains more women, children, and blacks.
Download or read book Where Have All the Homeless Gone written by Anthony Marcus and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For a decade, from 1983 to 1993, homelessness was a major concern in the United States. In 1994, this public concern suddenly disappeared, without any significant reduction in the number of people without proper housing. By examining the making and unmaking of a homeless crisis, this book explores how public understandings of what constitutes a social crisis are shaped. Drawing on five years of ethnographic research in New York City with African Americans and Latinos living in poverty, Where Have All the Homeless Gone? reveals that the homeless "crisis" was driven as much by political misrepresentations of poverty, race, and social difference, as the housing, unemployment, and healthcare problems that caused homelessness and continue to plague American cities.
Download or read book Making Room written by Brendan O'Flaherty and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mentally ill people turned out of institutions, crack-cocaine use on the rise, more poverty, public housing a shambles: as attempts to explain homelessness multiply so do the homeless--and we still don't know why. The first full-scale economic analysis of homelessness, Making Room provides answers quite unlike those offered so far by sociologists and pundits. It is a story about markets, not about the bad habits or pathology of individuals. One perplexing fact is that, though homelessness in the past occurred during economic depressions, the current wave started in the 1980s, a time of relative prosperity. As Brendan O'Flaherty points out, this trend has been accompanied by others just as unexpected: rising rents for poor people and continued housing abandonment. These are among the many disconcerting facts that O'Flaherty collected and analyzed in order to account for the new homelessness. Focused on six cities (New York, Newark, Chicago, Toronto, London, and Hamburg), his studies also document the differing rates of homelessness in North America and Europe, and from one city to the next, as well as interesting changes in the composition of homeless populations. For the first time, too, a scholarly observer makes a useful distinction between the homeless people we encounter on the streets every day and those "officially" counted as homeless. O'Flaherty shows that the conflicting observations begin to make sense when we see the new homelessness as a response to changes in the housing market, linked to a widening gap in the incomes of rich and poor. The resulting shrinkage in the size of the middle class has meant fewer hand-me-downs for the poor and higher rents for the low-quality housing that is available. O'Flaherty's tightly argued theory, along with the wealth of new data he introduces, will put the study of homelessness on an entirely new plane. No future student or policymaker will be able to ignore the economic f
Download or read book Reckoning with Homelessness written by Kim Hopper and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kim Hopper has dedicated his career to trying to address the problem of homelessness in the United States. In this powerful book, he draws upon his dual strengths as anthropologist and advocate to provide a deeper understanding of the roots of homelessness.
Download or read book The Visible Poor written by Joel Blau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1993-05-13 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking an in-depth look at the causes of homelessness in the United States, Joel Blau disproves the convenient myths that most homeless are crazy, drug addicts, or lazy misfits who brought their suffering upon themselves. He shows that the current crisis was an inevitable result of economic and political changes in recent decades, systematically reviewing the explanations offered by researchers, politicians and pundits, from the deinstitutionalization of mental patients in the 1960s to the gentrification of urban neighborhoods in the 1970s to the evisceration of federal spending on social welfare in the 1980s. Blau argues that current government policies at every level are mired in pointless headcounting and quick-fix solutions that only push the homeless out of sight without touching the underlying causes. He advocates social reforms ranging form a national standard for welfare benefits, a higher minimum wage, and establishment of a social sector for non-profit, affordable housing. A powerful contribution to public debate on homelessness, The Visible Poor must be read by concerned citizens as well as by policy-makers and advocates.
Download or read book American Homelessness written by Mary Ellen Hombs and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2001-07-23 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With 50 percent new material, this third edition breaks this complex topic into key elements, examining the roots of the problem, programs that address it, current research, and public perceptions of homelessness. American Homelessness covers who the homeless are and why they are in such a situation; important events that have contributed to the problem; and a who's who of homelessness activism including people such as MacArthur Fellow Robert M. Hayes, the former securities lawyer who filed the landmark New York City right-to-shelter case in l979. It also includes a chronology; facts and statistics; key documents and reports; a discussion of the International Bill of Rights; a directory of organizations, associations, and government agencies; and an annotated bibliography.
Download or read book Poverty and Homelessness written by Noël Merino and published by Greenhaven Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2009 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Alliance to End Homelessness states that there are 564,708 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the U.S. The primary source writings in this anthology have been selected to provide your readers with a broad range of viewpoints on poverty and homelessness, including whether government assistance is working or making things worse. The essays in each chapter of this book represent contrasting viewpoints on government social assistance programs and income inequality. Students are encouraged to see the validity of divergent opinions, crucial to the development of critical thinking skills. An important question about the topic is presented in each chapter, and the viewpoints that follow are organized based on their response to the question. Fact boxes summarize important information for researchers, and an extensive bibliography is included.
Download or read book Homelessness in America written by Stephen Eide and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-06-02 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last thirty years have witnessed an urban renaissance in America. Major cities have managed to drive down the murder rate, improve the schools, restore the built environment, and revitalize their economies. Middle class families are putting down roots in neighborhoods once given up for dead. But solutions to homelessness have eluded even the most successful cities. While the South Bronx was once synonymous across the globe for “slum,” now, San Francisco and Los Angeles are just as internationally notorious for their homelessness crises. Indeed, the same cities with the worst homelessness crises rank among America’s most successful. One of the crisis’ more perplexing features is how cities that have met with so much success with respect to economic development, crime and public education have failed to even ease their homelessness crisis, much less end it. In Homelessness in America, Stephen Eide examines the history, governmental and private responses, and future prospects of this intractable challenge. The “chronic” nature of the challenge should be understood, he argues, by reference to American history and American ideals. The history of homelessness is bound up with industrialization and urbanization, the closing of the West, the Great Depression, and the post WWII decline and subsequent revival of great American cities. Though we’ve used different terms (“tramp” “hobo” “bum”) at other times, something like homelessness has always been with us and the debate over causes and solutions has always involved conflicts over fundamental values. After explaining why homelessness persists in America and correcting popular misconceptions about the issue, Eide offers concrete recommendations for how we can do better for the homeless population. Homelessness in America engages readers by answering the most common questions their audience brings to the topic and exploring other questions that are no less important for being not as commonly asked. Homelessness intersects with multiple other policy areas: education, urban development, criminal justice reform, mental health. By exploring the intersection of homelessness with so many other policy areas, this book aspires to provide a comprehensive account of the challenge.
Download or read book No Way Home written by Wayne Winegarden and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In San Diego, not far from the gates of the fantasy world of Disneyland, tent cities lining the freeways remind us of an ugly reality. Homeless individuals are slowing rail traffic between Sacramento and the Bay Area and swarming subway trains in Los Angeles in search of a place to sleep when they’re not languishing on Skid Row. Drug use among the homeless is plaguing communities, with discarded needles threatening children playing at public parks. And every day across California, thousands of homeless youth who lack safe and stable housing struggle to stay in school, to perform well academically, and to form meaningful connections with their teachers and peers. Since the 1980s, countless research studies have been published on the topic of homelessness in America. Too often, however, social science research on homelessness is narrow in scope, mired in politics, and reliant on questionable assumptions about the root causes of the problem. The severity of the homeless crises afflicting cities requires innovative solutions backed by credible data and objective research. This book examines the causes of homelessness with a focus on unaffordable housing, poverty, mental illness, substance addiction, and legal reform. It examines the state and local policy environment to determine ways in which housing policy, social service programs, and employment opportunities interact to exacerbate, perpetuate, or reduce homelessness. The book also evaluates different strategies being used at the state, county, and local levels to prevent or reduce homelessness. Finally, the authors provide a mix of long-term policy solutions based on their findings that have the greatest potential to reduce homelessness.
Download or read book Down and Out on the Road written by Kenneth L. Kusmer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-11-29 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering the entire period from the colonial era to the late twentieth century, this book is the first scholarly history of the homeless in America. Drawing on sources that include records of charitable organizations, sociological studies, and numerous memoirs of formerly homeless persons, Kusmer demonstrates that the homeless have been a significant presence on the American scene for over two hundred years. He probes the history of homelessness from a variety of angles, showing why people become homeless; how charities and public authorities dealt with this social problem; and the diverse ways in which different class, ethnic, and racial groups perceived and responded to homelessness. Kusmer demonstrates that, despite the common perception of the homeless as a deviant group, they have always had much in common with the average American. Focusing on the millions who suffered downward mobility, Down and Out, On the Road provides a unique view of the evolution of American society and raises disturbing questions about the repeated failure to face and solve the problem of homelessness.
Download or read book Homeless written by Ella Howard and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-01-09 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The homeless have the legal right to exist in modern American cities, yet antihomeless ordinances deny them access to many public spaces. How did previous generations of urban dwellers deal with the tensions between the rights of the homeless and those of other city residents? Ella Howard answers this question by tracing the history of skid rows from their rise in the late nineteenth century to their eradication in the mid-twentieth century. Focusing on New York's infamous Bowery, Homeless analyzes the efforts of politicians, charity administrators, social workers, urban planners, and social scientists as they grappled with the problem of homelessness. The development of the Bowery from a respectable entertainment district to the nation's most infamous skid row offers a lens through which to understand national trends of homelessness and the complex relationship between poverty and place. Maintained by cities across the country as a type of informal urban welfare, skid rows anchored the homeless to a specific neighborhood, offering inhabitants places to eat, drink, sleep, and find work while keeping them comfortably removed from the urban middle classes. This separation of the homeless from the core of city life fostered simplistic and often inaccurate understandings of their plight. Most efforts to assist them centered on reforming their behavior rather than addressing structural economic concerns. By midcentury, as city centers became more valuable, urban renewal projects and waves of gentrification destroyed skid rows and with them the public housing and social services they offered. With nowhere to go, the poor scattered across the urban landscape into public spaces, only to confront laws that effectively criminalized behavior associated with abject poverty. Richly detailed, Homeless lends insight into the meaning of homelessness and poverty in twentieth-century America and offers us a new perspective on the modern welfare system.
Download or read book The Poorhouse written by David Wagner and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2005-01-17 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of us grew up hearing our parents exclaim 'you are driving me to the poorhouse!' or remember the card in the 'Monopoly' game which says 'Go to the Poorhouse! Lose a Turn!' Yet most Americans know little or nothing of this institution that existed under a variety of names for approximately three hundred years of American history. Surprisingly these institutions variously named poorhouses, poor farms, sometimes almshouses or workhouses, have received rather scant academic treatment, as well, though tens of millions of poor people were confined there, while often their neighbors talked in hushed tones and in fear of their own fate at the 'specter of the poorhouse.' Based on the author's study of six New England poorhouses/poor farms, a hidden story in America's history is presented which will be of popular interest as well as useful as a text in social welfare and social history. While the poorhouse's mission was character reform and 'repressing pauperism,' these goals were gradually undermined by poor people themselves, who often learned to use the poorhouse for their own benefit, as well as by staff and officials of the houses, who had agendas sometimes at odds with the purposes for which the poorhouse was invented.
Download or read book Poverty and the Homeless written by Mary E. Williams and published by Greenhaven Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2004 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poverty and homelessness are sadly evident in America's cities-and even in some of the nation's rural areas. Contributors examine the root causes of poverty and what should be done to help the poor and the homeless.
