San Antonio College Library

Interviews with nine observers from the humanities, social and medical sciences, and human services examine the nature and conditions of this ongoing crisis.

Whose fault is homelessness? Thirty years ago the problem exploded as a national crisis, drawing the attention of activists, the media, and policymakers at all levels, yet the homeless population endures to this day, and arguably has grown. In this book the author offers a major reconsideration of homelessness in the U.S., casting a critical eye on how we as a society respond to crises of inequality and stratification. Incorporating local studies...

"Anthropologists have a long tradition of working in poverty subcultures and have been able to contribute answers to some of the puzzles of homelessness through their ability to enter the culture of the homeless without some of the preconceptions of other disciplines." "The authors, anthropologists from the USA and Canada, offer us an analysis of homelessness that is grounded in anthropological research in North America and throughout the world. Both...

At the conclusion of the twentieth century, the U.S. economy was booming, but the gap between the rich and poor widened significantly in the 1990s, poverty rates among women and children skyrocketed, and there was an unprecedented rise in familial homelessness. Based on a four-year ethnographic study, Anne R. Roschelle examines how socially structured race, class, and gender inequality contributed to the rise in family homelessness and the devastating...

Elucidates for the link between homelessness and housing policy, assesses the current state of affairs, analyzes promising policies and programs, and offers a new agenda for future research.

Late in the 1970s, Americans began to notice more people sleeping in public places and wandering the streets. By the late 1980s, the homeless were everywhere--a grim reminder of America's social and economic troubles. Renowned social analyst Jencks discusses the causes and extent of this problem and what can be done about it. Line illustrations and tables.

Covering the entire period, from the colonial era to the late-20th century, this book charts the 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 200 years. He probes the history of homelessness from a variety of angles,...

Rossi (sociology, U. of Massachusetts, Amherst) provides a comprehensive picture of homelessness in the US today, offers an explanation of its causes, and proposes short- and long-term solutions to the problem. He notes that the homeless of the 1950s and 1960s offer a striking contrast to the contemporary population, which is much younger on average, contains more women, children, and blacks, and receives less income.

"It is all too easy to assume that social service programs respond to homelessness, seeking to prevent and understand it. "The Value of Homelessness," however, argues that homelessness today is an effect of social services and sciences, which shape not only what counts as such but what will--or ultimately won't--be done about it. Through a history of U.S. housing insecurity from the 1930s to the present, Craig Willse traces the emergence and consolidation...