Overview

This collection of essays addresses the lack of shelter—one of the most basic elements of human adaptation—now experienced by many Americans. Based on the presupposition that shelter is a basic human right in the world's richest, most advanced nation, the authors of these essays look more closely than others have yet done at the causes of the current low-income housing crisis and homelessness. Ten anthropologists and a mental health worker use participant observation and other ethnographic methods to observe and document the experiential and geographic diversity of U.S. homelessness. Each chapter focuses on a specific geographic area—urban, suburban, or rural—and a specific category of homeless people—families with children, solitary adults, or both. Based on their findings, the authors also present policy recommendations to ameliorate the housing shortage and prevent homelessness at local, state, and federal levels.

Full Product Details

Author:   Anna Lou Dehavenon
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint:   Praeger Publishers Inc
Edition:   New edition
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.20cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.369kg
ISBN:  

9780897896610

ISBN 10:   0897896610
Pages:   232
Publication Date:   30 January 1999
Recommended Age:   From 7 to 17 years
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

"Preface: Azdak Lives by Kim Hopper Introduction by Anna Lou Dehavenon Poverty and Homelessness in Rural Upstate New York by Janet M. Fitchen The 1990 Decennial Census and Patterns of Homelessness in a Small New England City by Irene Glasser Doubling Up: A Strategy of Urban Reciprocity to Avoid Homelessness in Detroit by M. Rory Bolger Doubling Up and New York City's Policies for Sheltering Homeless Families by Anna Lou Dehavenon A Home By Any Means Necessary: Government Policy and Squatting in Public Housing of a Large Mid-Atlantic City by Andrew H. Maxwell Huts for the Homeless: A Low Technology Approach for Squatters in Atlanta, Georgia by Amy Phillips and Susan Hamilton Piety and Poverty: The Religious Response to the Homeless in Albuquerque, New Mexico by Michael Robertson Suburban Homelessness and Social Space: Strategies of Authority and Local Resistance in Orange County, California by Talmadge Wright and Anita Vermund ""There Goes the Neighborhood"": Gentrification, Displacement, and Homelessness in Washington, D.C. by Brett Williams Conclusion by Anna Lou Dehavenon Epilogue: A Perilous Bridge by Marvin Harris References Index"

Reviews

Anna Lou Dehavenon is the first anthropologist to achieve a long-term study of the homeless in New York City by both objectively controlled methods and intensive, participant observation, thus making availiable scientifically reliable as well as humanely inspired knowledge of their condition and sufferings, contributing significantly to the successful social and legal struggle to compel the authorities to make some improvements in their situation. It is a fine step forward for social anthropology, urban studies and public policy formation. -Aidan Southall Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisc.-Madison

This outstanding volume, the result of long-term work by dedicated anthropologists, documents in horrifying detail both urban and rural homelessness in the United States since 1980....The book is a wake-up call--may it be heeded. -The Antioch Review ?This outstanding volume, the result of long-term work by dedicated anthropologists, documents in horrifying detail both urban and rural homelessness in the United States since 1980....The book is a wake-up call--may it be heeded.?-The Antioch Review The anthropologists' lens employed in these essays throws a new and vivid light on the experience of homelessness in America. It is a problem with which we have grown weary. But these essays recapture our attention and revive our moral conscience by showing how totally homelessness changes and damages the human struggle for a life. -Frances Fox Piven Professor of Political Science and Sociology City College of New York Passionate, deeply honest, and heartbreaking. A must read for citizens and policy-makers. -Carol Stack, author, Call to Home Professor of Women's Studies and Education University of California at Berkeley I am delighted by the publication of this volume of penetrating essays on homelessness, based on research organized by the American Anthropological Association Task Force on Poverty and Homelessness. It demonstrates, with force and clarity, the power and usefulness of anthropology when it engages with problems afflicting contemporary society. There should be much more such work. -Roy A. Rappaport Past President, American Anthropological Association Anna Lou Dehavenon is the first anthropologist to achieve a long-term study of the homeless in New York City by both objectively controlled methods and intensive, participant observation, thus making availiable scientifically reliable as well as humanely inspired knowledge of their condition and sufferings, contributing significantly to the successful social and legal struggle to compel the authorities to make some improvements in their situation. It is a fine step forward for social anthropology, urban studies and public policy formation. -Aidan Southall Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisc.-Madison

Author Information

ANNA LOU DEHAVENON is Founder and Director of the Action Research Project on Hunger, Homelessness, and Family Health./e She is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology in Community Medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine (CUNY).

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