Homeless Booklist: Books and eBooks

In Class and Campus Life, Elizabeth M. Lee shows how class differences are enacted and negotiated by students, faculty, and administrators at an elite liberal arts college for women located in the Northeast. She also analyzes underlying moral judgments brought to light through cultural connotations of merit, hard work by individuals, and making it on your own that permeate American higher education.

This volume explores how homelessness intersects most social issues that marginalize individuals and negatively influence postsecondary completion, including poverty, foster care, and LGBTQ+ discrimination. Topics covered include: how residential experiences influence educational, engagement and retention, an overview of research related to housing insecurity in higher education, federal and state policies related to homelessness in higher education, a trauma-informed care approach to this issue, an approach to understanding and studying housing insecurity among students, ideas that will be necessary for policy, and program development.

Why do young people become homeless and what might be done about it? This book is important reading for academics and students studying education, sociology, or social work who wish to explore and understand the experience of homeless young people. Through exploring one effective support service, the book presents positive and far-reaching strategies to assist young people in difficult predicaments back into secure accommodation.

Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.

There is no safety net for the millions of heartbroken refugees from the American Dream, scattered helplessly in any city you can name. “Rachel and Her Children” is an unforgettable record for humanity, of the desperate voices of the men, women, and especially children, and their hourly struggle for survival, homeless in America.

E. Fuller Torrey's book provides an inside perspective on the birth of the federal mental health program. Torrey examines John F. Kennedys' involvement in the policy, the role of major players, the responsibility of the state versus the federal government in caring for the mentally ill, the political maneuverings required to pass the legislation, and how closing institutions resulted not in better care - as was the aim - but in underfunded programs, neglect, and higher rates of community violence. Many now wonder why public mental illness services are so ineffective. At least one-third of the homeless are seriously mentally ill, jails and prisons are grossly overcrowded, largely because the seriously mentally ill constitute 20 percent of prisoners, and public facilities are overrun by untreated individuals. As Torrey argues, it is imperative to understand how we got here in order to move forward towards providing better care for the most vulnerable.

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.

This book that presents a searing, intimate portrait of working American families struggling against insurmountable odds to escape poverty. The invisible poor are engaged in the activity most respected in American ideology; hard, honest work. But their version of the American Dream is a nightmare: low-paying, dead-end jobs; the profound failure of government to improve upon decaying housing, health care, and education; the failure of families to break the patterns of child abuse and substance abuse. Shipler exposes the interlocking problems by taking us into the sorrowful, infuriating, courageous lives of the poor white and black, Asian and Latino, citizens and immigrants. This impassioned book not only dissects the problems, but makes pointed, informed recommendations for change.

This book summarizes the research surrounding permanent supportive housing (PSH) for chronically homeless individuals. In doing so, it attempts to examine the nuance in the research to determine where PSH could be considered successful and where gaps may remain. The book discusses what it means to be chronically homeless, the way in which assistance for chronically homeless individuals has evolved, and how federal programs target assistance to individuals experiencing chronic homelessness. In addition, it summarizes the research regarding chronically homeless individuals who move into PSH.

The Handbook of Research on Leadership and Advocacy for Children and Families in Rural Poverty is an essential scholarly publication that creates awareness and promotes action for the advocacy of children and families in rural poverty and recommends interdisciplinary approaches to support the cognitive, social, and emotional needs of children and families in poverty.