Homelessness: A Critical Introduction

Homelessness is a punishing condition that inflicts unquestionable harm on those who experience it. It is also a social problem that starkly lays bare deep societal failure.

As Cameron Parsell shows, society – along with the public policy measures intended to address it – treats being homeless as an identity, casting those who experience homelessness as fundamentally different from “us.” To be homeless is to face daily victimization, to be a recipient of someone else’s care, and to have auto...