Address Unknown: The Homeless in America

by James Wright (Editor)

Overview

Homelessness in America has grown from a minor problem in isolated areas of a few big cities into a near epidemic. Today, scarcely any American city of any appreciable size lacks homeless people. Homeless shelters and programs have become as essential and as commonplace as police protection or water and sewage treatment. What to do for, with, or about the homeless is a nagging and complex social policy issue debated at all levels of government.

Address Unknown emphasizes the large-scale social and economic forces that have priced an increasingly large segment of the urban poor completely out of the housing market. Seen in this light, the problem of homelessness is that there are too many extremely poor people competing for too few aff ordable housing units. The nation would be facing a formidable homelessness problem even if there were no alcoholics, no drug addicts, no deinstitutionalized mentally ill people-no personal pathologies of any kind. Rather than a choice, homelessness is the result of housing markets that have very little to off er to extremely poor people.

The plight of the homeless is very visible, and Address Unknown is one of the first major investigative studies into the nature and multiple causes of the problem. Wright considers demographic, economic, sociological, and social policy antecedents of homelessness. A hallmark is the delineation of the range of factors involved, including deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, urban renewal, the decrease in lower-skilled jobs, changing political priorities, and bureaucratic obstacles to providing existing social services to the homeless population.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780202362571
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	04/15/2009
Series:	Social Institutions and Social Change Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	220
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	1370L (what's this?)

About the Author

James D. Wright is an author, educator, and the Provost’s Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida. He has written twenty-four books and more than 300 journal articles, book chapters, essays, reviews, and polemics.

James D. Wright is an author, educator, and the Provost’s Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida. He has written twenty-four books and more than 300 journal articles, book chapters, essays, reviews, and polemics.

Table of Contents

One: The Human Faces of Homelessness; Two: Homeless in America: The New American Nightmare; Three: The Root Causes: Housing and Poverty; Four: Who Are the Homeless? 1; Five: How People Become Homeless; Six: Drunk, Stoned, Crazy, and Sick; Seven: To Promote the Social Welfare; Eight: Who Can Be Helped, and How?

Editorial Reviews

This volume is so humanely sensitive, so skillfully researched, and so eminently readable that it should be required reading for anyone interested in issues of poverty, social inequity, and, on a more analytical level, the latent functions of well-intentioned social initiatives… Address Unknown is an important work. It provides a learned summary of the social forces that have precipitated and accompanies homelessness in the United States and offers a clear view of the conditions that militate against eliminating the problem.” —Leona L. Bachrach, Contemporary Sociology “In total, this book provides an excellent overview to the many issues involved in homelessness. It is easy to read, can be understood by any individual with some college background, and is very well organized. Perhaps it is best used by anyone concerned with the family to recognize that the phenomenon of homelessness is a reality for many American families and not just the fictionalized “wino in the gutter.”” —Elaine I. Bruck, Family Relations “[H]ighly readable, interesting, and should be on any core reading list for those interested in an overview of the problem.” —Richard P. Appelbaum, American Journal of Sociology “The plight of homeless people is of interest to the social work profession as this serious social problem continues to grow, casting its pernicious effects on cities and towns in urban, suburban, and rural America… Address Unknown: is an excellent introductory text for social work students or practitioners. The book captures the human face of homelessness and thoroughly explores policy and service-delivery strategies to reduce the number of homeless families and individuals in America.” —Frederick L. Ahearn, Jr., Social Work Research & Abstracts “According to the 1990 report of the U.S. Conference of Mayors… public sentiment toward the homeless has hardened in over half of the nation’s cities. But take even a short walk in the shoes of the homeless—men and women, black, white, and brown, young and old, drunk and sober, mentally healthy and mentally ill, families and loners, poor, poorer, and poorest—as James Wright invites us to do in Address Unknown, and you will see just how inadequate the new hard-heartedness is. Civic toughness, whether in the form of boot-camp prisons, tightly run shelters, no-nonsense drug therapies, or work-based welfare programs, has its limits, especially when the social problems at which it’s aimed have deep economic roots.” —John J. DiIulio Jr., The New Republic

From the Publisher

Describes the nature of homelessness, its multiple causes, and its demographic, economic, sociological, and social policy antecedents. Finding the origins of the problem to be social and political rather than economic, Wright (human relations, Tulane) outlines remedies based on existing and modified social and health services. Paper edition (unseen), $14.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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