In The War on Slums in the Southwest, Robert Fairbanks provides compelling and probing case studies of economic problems and public housing plights in Albuquerque, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix and San Antonio. He provides brief histories of each city--all of which expanded dynamically between 1935 and 1965--and how they responded to slums under the Housing Acts of 1937, 1949, and 1954. Despite being a region where conservative politics has ruled, these Southwestern cities often handled population growth, urban planning, and economic development in ways that closely followed the national account of efforts to eliminate slums and provide public housing for the needy. The War on Slums in the Southwest therefore corrects some misconceptions about the role of slum clearance and public housing in this region as Fairbanks integrates urban policy into the larger understanding of federal and state-based housing policies.

Youth homelessness increased rapidly during the late 1980s and early 1990s, at a time when street homelessness in particular became increasingly associated in the popular mind with dangerousness and criminality. This book analyzes the construction of homelessness as a social and legal 'problem' and documents young people's own experiences of homelessness, crime and danger. Drawing on the authors' own field work in a range of urban and rural locations, the book addresses themes of home and homelessness, of exclusion and marginality and of risk and urban incivilities.

An increasing number of families are becoming homeless, often as a result of domestic violence, which leaves women and their school age children without homes. This multidisciplinary volume is the first to look at the variety of problems encountered by this group and to propose strategies for managing those problems. The contributors to this book provide evidence that homeless children often have more acute problems and needs than other children; as a result of the insecurity of their situation, they may experience physical health problems and developmental delay. They are also at high risk of emotional and behavioral difficulties such as sleep disturbance, eating problems, aggression, over-activity, anxiety, depression and self-harm. At the same time, due to their unstable situation, they are less able to access support from the health, education and social services. Homeless Children is divided into two parts. Part I defines the specific problems and needs of homeless children, and draws up practical guidelines for staff and agencies on recognizing and dealing with those problems. Part II looks at policy and service development for homeless families in education, health and social care, and concludes that conventional methods of provision have to be adapted to meet the specific needs of this vulnerable group.

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 factors presented so convincingly in this plainspoken book.

The problem of homelessness in America underpins the definition of an American city: what it is, who it is for, what it does, and why it matters. And the problem of the American city is epitomized in public space. Mean Streets offers, in a single, sustained argument, a theory of the social and economic logic behind the historical development, evolution, and especially the persistence of homelessness in the contemporary American city. By updating and revisiting thirty years of research and thinking on this subject, Don Mitchell explores the conditions that produce and sustain homelessness and how its persistence relates to the way capital works in the urban built environment. He also addresses the historical and social origins that created the boundary between public and private. Consequently, he unpacks the structure, meaning, and governance of urban public space and its uses. Mitchell traces his argument through two sections: a broadly historical overview of how homelessness has been managed in public spaces, followed by an exploration of recent Supreme Court jurisprudence that expands our national discussion. Beyond the mere regulation of the homeless and the poor, homelessness has metastasized more recently, Mitchell argues, to become a general issue that affects all urbanites.

City of Segregation traces the central role racism has played in shaping modern Los Angeles-as it has shaped all US cities. Andrea Gibbons documents one hundred years of struggle against the enforced separation of racial groups through property markets, constructions of community and the growth of neoliberalism. This movement history covers the decades of work to end legal support for segregation in 1948; the 1960s Civil Rights movement and CORE's efforts to integrate LA's white suburbs; and the 2006 victory preserving 10,000 downtown residential hotel units from gentrification enfolded within ongoing resistance to the criminalization and displacement of homelessness. This is a story of state-supported segregation, violent grassroots defense of white neighborhoods, police oppression, and growing political and economic inequalities. In studying these conflicts-and their cycles of victory and retreat-City of Segregation reveals the shape and nature of the racist ideology that must be fought if we hope to found just cities.

This book explores residential satisfaction and housing policy trends in developing nations by using subsidised low-income housing examples in South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria as case studies. While there has been much documentation on the formation of residential satisfaction and the evolution of housing policy in developed nations, relatively little has been written about these topics in developing nations. This book provides readers with two major practical insights: The first is focused on the theoretical underpinning of residential satisfaction and the formation of residential satisfaction in subsidised low-income housing through the development of a conceptual framework, while the second is focused on housing policy evolution and its trends in South Africa. In this section of the book, comparative overviews of public housing in two West African countries are provided with an emphasis on the philosophical basis for its development in these countries. The central aim of the book is to provide readers with ideas on residential satisfaction formation and housing policy trends in South Africa.

In the decade following the housing crisis, Americans remain enthusiastic about the prospect of owning a home. Homeownership is a symbol of status attainment in the United States, and for many Americans, buying a home is the most important financial investment they will ever make. We are deeply committed to an ideology of homeownership that presents homeownership as a tool for building stronger communities and crafting better citizens. However, in No Place Like Home, Brian McCabe argues that such beliefs about the public benefits of homeownership are deeply mischaracterized. As owning a home has emerged as the most important way to build wealth in the United States, it has also reshaped the way citizens become involved in their communities. Rather than engaging as public-spirited stewards of civic life, McCabe demonstrates that homeowners often engage in their communities as a way to protect their property values. This involvement contributes to the politics of exclusion, and prevents particular citizens from gaining access to high-opportunity neighborhoods, thereby reinforcing patterns of residential segregation. A thorough analysis of the politics of homeownership, No Place Like Home prompts readers to reconsider the power of homeownership to strengthen citizenship and build better communities.

'Ask Me Why I Hurt' is the first-person account of the remarkable work of Dr. Randy Christensen, a Phoenix paediatrician who treats that city's homeless adolescents from a mobile clinic (a Winnebago refitted as a doctor's office on wheels) that he drives himself.

Although homelessness is a serious social problem in the United States, there is little direct information about the actual experiences of violence, past and current, among homeless people. This volume, based on the Florida Four-City Study, brings together interview material from 737 women, including structured quantitative interviews as well as in-depth qualitative interviews. The authors investigate how many homeless women have experienced violence in their lives, either as children or as adults, and then examine factors associated with experiences of violence, the consequences of violence, and types of interactions of homeless people with the justice system. The volume concludes with pragmatic and compassionate policy recommendations.

Often described as an emergency, homelessness in America is becoming a chronic condition that reflects an overall decline in the nation's standard of living and the general state of the economy.This is the disturbing conclusion drawn by Martha Burt inOver the Edge, a timely book that takes a clear-eyed look at the astonishing surge in the homeless population during the 1980s. Assembling and analyzing data from 147 U.S. cities, Burt documents the increase in homelessness and proposes a comprehensive explanation of its causes, incorporating economic, personal, and policy determinants. Her unique research answers many provocative questions: Why did homelessness continue to spiral even after economic conditions improved in 1983? Why is it significantly greater in cities with both high poverty rates and high per capita income? What can be done about the problem? Burt points to the significant catalysts of homelessness the decline of manufacturing jobs in the inner city, the increased cost of living, the tight rental housing market, diminished household income, and reductions in public benefit programs all of which exert pressures on the more vulnerable of the extremely poor. She looks at the special problems facing the homeless, including the growing number of mentally ill and chemically dependent individuals, and explains why certain groups minorities and low-skilled men, single men and women, and families headed by women are at greatest risk of becoming homeless. Burt's analysis reveals that homelessness arises from no single factor, but is instead perpetuated by pivotal interactions between external social and economic conditions and personal vulnerabilities."

The Ethics of Homelessness is a compilation of essays analysing the philosophical, legal and social implications of the seemingly intractable condition that people endure without a home, where their fundamental human rights, autonomy and privacy are compromised. Authors use literature and arguments to demonstrate the failings of public policy.