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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Homelessness
In the past, accounts of housing were dominated by the analysis of the problems of slum property at the bottom of the market, and the way in which public housing emerged from attempts to ameliorate the worst conditions, in an apparently inevitable process. This title questions this perception by focussing on the process of development, architectural forms, the pattern of ownership, property management and control, and public policy.
This moving collection brings together the stories of fifteen women who share the common experience of homelessness. Drawing on interviews conducted in Seattle, Washington over the course of nearly two decades, these accounts range across the United States, from New York to Louisiana to Los Angeles. Included here are memories of living in the South at the tail end of Jim Crow, of growing up gay and Black in the Pacific Northwest in the 1960s, and of surviving childhood abuse in Harlan, Kentucky in the 1970s. These women reveal the formidable struggles they face every day, from catastrophic health issues to routine threats of physical and sexual assault. But they also speak about their own intellectual interests and spiritual lives, and their activism with organizations such as Women in Black, which has held vigils to mark the deaths and honor the lives of the hundreds who have died homeless in the city that spawned Microsoft, Starbucks, and the WTO protests. Illuminating the rich and complicated humanity of its narrators, this book challenges stereotypes about homeless people and provides jarring, unforgettable insights--taken from shelters, drop-in centers, and the streets--into civil society in the United States.
The Philosophy of Homelessness is borne out of a five-year ethnographic research project involving being with a group of chronically homeless people in Chester. A small city located in the northwest of the UK, Chester is economically supported by its heritage and the tourism that this attracts. In an obvious sense, the awkwardness of the phrase 'being with a group of chronically homeless people' is regrettable. Nevertheless, this unfortunately self-conscious phrase is significant, with its importance residing in the word and concept of 'being'. Whilst philosophical understandings of being are often thought about in rather abstract terms, The Philosophy of Homelessness explores the daily experience of chronic homelessness from a perspective that renders its ontological impress in ways that are explicitly felt, often in forms that are overtly political and exclusionary in character, especially in terms of identity and belonging within the city. Themes that emerge from the work, which coalesce around living in the margins of the city and experiencing only the shadow of the right to be, include: the economy of chronic addiction and its impact upon the body; the relationship between chronic homelessness and the law; and chronic homelessness and identity and desire. These themes are explored through a number of thinkers, though predominantly: Nietzsche, Lacan, Bourdieu and Kristeva. This work is likely to be of interest to anyone working in the fields of: criminology; sociology, especially those areas concerned with marginalised groups; and philosophy in its socially and politically engaged forms; as well as to those with an interest in homelessness.
A poignant and absorbing book of prose and poetry, "He Didn't Die Easy" details both the world's suffering and its eternal promise as observed by a journalist during her career. The reflections in "He Didn't Die Easy" represent a ten-year journey during which author Mary W. Kimani struggles with the questions arising from the physical and psychological consequences of war as well as the pain, anguish and terror that linger long after. Kimani speaks of how perpetrators of violence and their victims live together under conditions of emotional turmoil, daily anxiety, and utter desperation. Yet, in the face of these seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Kimani's words echo with optimism and the faith that our world will become a better place. "He Didn't Die Easy" is a personal search for hope and meaning in the face of the haunting and overwhelming realities of pain, poverty, violence, war and genocide that the author has seen, experienced, and written about during the course of her life's work.
The growing number of homeless people over age 50 has reached epidemic proportions. It is important to recognize that this group has special needs and demands from health factors to safety. This book is a resource for professionals training and working with this homeless contingent.
The intricacies of living in contemporary Latin American cities include cases of both empowerment and restriction. In Lima, residents built their own homes and formed community organizations, while in Rio de Janeiro inhabitants of the favelas needed to be "pacified" in anticipation of international sporting events. Aspirations to "get ahead in life" abound in the region, but so do multiple limitations to realizing the dream of upward mobility. This volume captures the paradoxical histories and experiences of urban life in Latin America, offering new empirical and theoretical insights to scholars.
In many ways, the European welfare state constituted a response to the new forms of social fracture and economic turbulence that were born out of industrialization-challenges that were particularly acute for groups whose integration into society seemed the most tenuous. Covering a range of national cases, this volume explores the relationship of weak social ties to poverty and how ideas about this relationship informed welfare policies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By focusing on three representative populations-neglected children, the homeless, and the unemployed-it provides a rich, comparative consideration of the shifting perceptions, representations, and lived experiences of social vulnerability in modern Europe.
Tony is facing eviction instead of enjoying retirement; Limarra isn't 'homeless enough' to get help from the council; and for Kelly and her asthmatic son Morgan, another new rented house is a matter of life and death. This is twenty-first century Britain, where millions are trying to build lives in privately rented accommodation, which creates profit for landlords but not safe and stable homes for tenants. This fierce and moving account tells their stories, and the story of how we built a housing system where homelessness is a constant threat. Award-winning housing journalist Vicky Spratt traces decades of bad decisions to show how and why the British dream of homeownership has withered and the safety net of social housing has unravelled. She has spent years talking with those on the frontline all around the country. Here, she illuminates the ways this national emergency cuts across generations, class and education and is devastating our health, destroying communities and transforming the social, economic and political landscape beyond recognition. But it is not irreversible. The Covid-19 pandemic showed that radical action is possible, and there are real steps we can take to give everyone the chance of a good home. This urgent, ground breaking book leads the way.
Mark Kleinman's new book explains what has happened to housing policy in Europe over the last two decades, and what housing policy can tell us about welfare development more generally over the period. Housing, Welfare and the State in Europe identifies a divergence in housing policy between, on the one hand, the majority of relatively affluent households and, on the other, an impoverished minority. The legal, financial and economic concerns of the well-housed, owner-occupier majority have preoccupied public policy across Europe, with the impoverished minority often badly housed or homeless. In Britain this has been particularly evident with elections won and lost on the level of the mortgage rate rather than the level of housing output, and still less on the level of homelessness. Housing policy occupies a unique place in public policy at the intersection of social with economic policy, involving a mixed economy of welfare. Consequently, Dr Kleinman's study offers insights into the future direction of public policy as a whole, the balance between economic and social goals, and the relative weighting given to free markets and state intervention in a variety of countries.
Property Rights and Climate Change explores the multifarious relationships between different types of climate-driven environmental changes and property rights. This original contribution to the literature examines such climate changes through the lens of property rights, rather than through the lens of land use planning. The inherent assumption pursued is that the different types of environmental changes, with their particular effects and impact on land use, share common issues regarding the relation between the social construction of land via property rights and the dynamics of a changing environment. Making these common issues explicit and discussing the different approaches to them is the central objective of this book. Through examining a variety of cases from the Arctic to the Australian coast, the contributors take a transdisciplinary look at the winners and losers of climate change, discuss approaches to dealing with changing environmental conditions, and stimulate pathways for further research. This book is essential reading for lawyers, planners, property rights experts and environmentalists.
Street outreach workers comb public places such as parks, vacant lots, and abandoned waterfronts to search for young people who are living out in public spaces, if not always in the public eye. "Street Kids" opens a window to the largely hidden world of street youth, drawing on their detailed and compelling narratives to give new insight into the experiences of youth homelessness and youth outreach. Kristina Gibson argues that the enforcement of quality of life ordinances in New York City has spurred hyper-mobility amongst the city's street youth population and has serious implications for social work with homeless youth. Youth in motion have become socially invisible and marginalized from public spaces where social workers traditionally contact them, jeopardizing their access to the already limited opportunities to escape street life. The culmination of a multi-year ethnographic investigation into the lives of street outreach workers and 'their kids' on the streets of New York City, "Street Kids" illustrates the critical role that public space regulations and policing play in shaping the experience of youth homelessness and the effectiveness of street outreach.
First published in 1994, this in-depth and long-term study presents an ethnography which is comprised of personal narratives of victims of domestic abuse and homelessness. Drawing on these stories, the book addresses a number of issues surrounding the provision of services for homeless women and domestic abuse victims, including the effectiveness of assistance programs and laws and potential solutions to the problems of both domestic abuse and homelessness. This book will be of interest to those studying social work, health care and mental health, sociology and women's studies.
Young Homeless People takes a broad approach to the distressing phenomenon of youth homelessness. While politicians, researchers and the media focus on the more visibly homeless - those sleeping rough in city centres or staying in hostels - this book also considers the young homeless hidden in local communities. It places young people's experiences of homelessness in the context of their biographies as a whole and makes policy and practice recommendations based on the views and preferences of young homeless people themselves.
In Family Poverty and Homelessness in New York City , Nunez and Sribnick explore the world of New York's poor children and families, from the era of European settlements to the present day. The book examines successes and failures of past efforts, providing historical context often lacking in contemporary policy debates.
This title was first published in 1986 during a recession much like that faced in recent years, which placed immense pressure on the British planning system and led to social unrest in the inner cities and in many disadvantaged areas. Within this context, Peter Ambrose outlines the features of land development and explores the circumstances of post-war planning. The central section of the book deals with the key forces at work in land development - finance, the construction industry and the local and central state - and explains how they interact. Using a number of case-studies, including the greenfield urban fringe and London's docklands, as well as examples drawn from other countries, Ambrose provides an essential background to the British planning system and the problems still faced by it today.
Building Communities: The Co-Operative Way, first published in 1988, sets the flourishing of housing co-operatives throughout the 1980s in a theoretical and historical framework that suggests that tenant control is the best way out of the still-problematic issue of housing policy. Before the First World War, co-operative housing was poised to become a potent force in government policy, but instead municipal housing rose to prominence. However, alongside a growing crisis of confidence in state housing and a continued decline in the private rented sector, a new political consensus has emerged that has placed co-ops firmly at the top of the agenda. Setting out the argument for collective dweller-control of housing, Birchall demonstrates that the arguments for co-operatives are strong, based on a broad spectrum of political thought. He charts the early and recent history of co-operative housing, and shows how they provide a flexible and stable means of meeting housing needs.
Rejecting those who urge a bootstrap approach to people living in extreme poverty on the edge of society, sociologist Barbara Arrighi makes an eloquent, compassionate plea for empathy and collective responsibility toward those for whom either the boots or the straps are missing. This book further offers solutions in consciousness raising, community collaboration, and informed, responsible public policy. The book is a critique of a system that purports to serve yet sometimes impedes the welfare of those who are in need of the basic elements for survival, including affordable shelter. It analyzes the structural factors of poverty and the social psychological costs of being poor and lacking a home. Utilizing interview findings from families who have lived in a shelter in northern Kentucky and from staff members, the book examines the degrading effects of shelter life on women's self-respect and children's development. Rather than an examination of individual pathologies leading to lack of shelter, it centers on women and children living in shelters and offers a sociological study of poverty and the family.
Quarry Hill Flats, once both the pride and shame of its city of Leeds, was an iconic Modernist symbol of the 1930s. It marked the first use of a prefabricated building system for a large-scale council estate, replacing a notorious slum. But it lasted barely a generation - its complete demolition was announced as Alison Ravetz was finishing this study. First published in 1974, this book is unique in its use of all estate records from conception to destruction, as well as in its comprehensive approach, including aspects usually missing in council housing studies - notably the intimate experience of residents, and a fraught, long-drawn-out building period. Ravetz argues that the Flats' 'failure' was due not to social breakdown, as repeatedly alleged, but rather to a rigidity of design and management unable to accommodate gradual, incremental change. This has continuing implications for the operation of bureaucratically designed and controlled 'social housing' today.
This book, published in 1980, is an iconoclastic account of one of the pillars of the welfare state, British town and country planning, between 1945 and 1975. Always a fine balance between central control and market forces, it was challenged by strains within and between the environmental professions and protest by people dispossessed or alienated by re-shaped urban environments. Remaking Cities critiques the export of western-style planning to the developing world and reviews initiatives rooted in different understandings of 'growth' appearing in those years. Nearly forty years on, many of the same issues beset us, notably the depressingly familiar inner city problem, despite countless reports, funds and 'programmes'. But now our infrastructure and services, once publicly owned, are privatised and fragmented, and local government progressively relegated. The very core of planning, development control, is being pared in a struggle to regain the 'growth' which led to our current crisis. This gives fresh importance to the need for new modes of creating liveable, sustainable environments, emphasised in this important work.
First published in 1976, this book tells of the dramatic struggle between tenants' groups, community associations, students, squatters, intellectuals, political parties, and property developers at Tolmers Square in north London. The author describes how property developers, interested only in maximising profits, attempted to redevelop the Tolmers area for offices, while the local authority, pressurised by local tenants and faced with a housing shortage, tried to redevelop for housing. This book is about the politics of central city redevelopment. Although this text focuses on one particular case study, the same processes operate in all cities where land is used as a commodity for financial speculation. By tracing the Tolmers case in detail, this text demonstrates the forces which operate in city redevelopment, and shows the affect which various forms of opposition can have.
This book analyses the key forces affecting the affordability of rural homes in Britain and the changing shape of housing markets. It takes as its starting point, demographic trends impacting upon rural communities and upon market dynamics. From this point, it explores consequent patterns of housing affordability, examining changing opportunities in the rental and sale markets, at different spatial scales. The book also focuses on how markets are analysed, and how data are selectively used to demonstrate low levels of affordability, or a lack of need for additional housing in small village locations. Building on the demographic theme, the book considers the housing implications of an aging population, before the focus finally shifts to community initiative in the face of housing undersupply and planning's future role in delivering and procuring a more constant and predictable supply of affordable homes. In a speculative conclusion, the book ends by examining the current political trajectory in England, and the prospects for housing in the countryside in the context of localism and neighbourhood planning at a village level. This book was published as a special issue of Planning Practice and Research.
A JUDGE MURDERED IN A CITY PARK
This book is about the phenomenon of transit migration to Europe, and its impact on states and people.This book presets topical subject: the issue is politicized and mediatized. It combines new research data with an originality in approach: both top-down and bottom-up. It focuses inside and outside Europe.Challenging traditional approaches to migration, which see migrants in narrow categories (legal and illegal, newcomer and settler), Transit Migration shows that migrants and refugees live in transit for years, a stage in the migration course profoundly affecting destination countries and the migrants themselves. |
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