query: undergrad textbook on Homelessness?

[colist at comm-org.utoledo.edu]

[ed:  thanks to Catherine, Deborah, Helen, John, and Steve for replying 
to Mimi's query.]

From: Catherine Mobley <camoble at CLEMSON.EDU>

Mimi,

I just completed an undergraduate policy course addressing 
homelessness.  I couldn't find many textbooks.  Two you might 
consider:

1.      Helping America's Homeless:  Emergency Shelter or Affordable 
Housing?  by Martha Burt and colleagues (published by the Urban 
Institute).  This may be more a graduate level book, but it provides 
great background material.

2.      The Homeless:  Opposing Viewpoints, edited by Jennifer Hurley, 
published by Greenhaven Press:  Short chapters centered around 
several debates related to homelessness: e.g.,  Homelessness is a 
serious problem for society vs. homelessness is not society's problem; 
Homelessness is a problem in cities vs. homelessness is a problem in 
rural communities; the federal government should work to provide 
affordable housing vs. the federal government should not work to 
provide affordable housing;  and the hardcore homeless should be 
arrested vs. society should not criminalize the homeless.

Good luck!
Catherine Mobley

*********************************

From: Deborah Martin <dgmartin at uga.edu>

I teach an intro urban geography class and have found the
book, _Sidewalk_ by Mitchell Duneier (1999 I think) to be
excellent. It's about the informal economy of sidewalk vending
in NYC, and it deals with homelessness, racism, and the
politics of doing research beautifully.  I use the
methological appendix in a graduate qualitative methods class
as well. It's published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.  I
guess it's not much newer than the Baumohl book, but you might
give it a try.

-Deborah

**************************

From: "Hartnett, Helen P" <helenh at ku.edu>

depends on how you define and how direct you may want the book to 
be, but "Sidewalk" is a good book which considers community creation, 
housed and unhoused people and the struggle to make ends meet and 
live life in public.

************************

From: "John E. Glass" <jeglass at familyplace.org>

Mimi

You might want to consider having your students read this:

http://thehomelessguy.blogspot.com/

This gentleman is homeless and he keeps a weblog -- I think it is
fascinating.

John

John E Glass, Ph.D.
Sociologist
Director, Program Evaluation
The Family Place
P.O. Box 7999
Dallas, Texas, USA 75209
+1 214-443-7702
jeglass at familyplace.org
http://www.familyplace.org

**************************************

From: "Fisher Stephen L." <slfisher at ehc.edu>

I've had a good student response to David Hilfiker's Not All of Us Are 
Saints: A Doctor's Journey with the Poor.  It is certainly dated but raises 
the crucial issues of class, race, and privilege, makes clear the failure 
of the policy systems that are supposed to help the homeless, and 
highlights the issue of what is our individual responsiblity to the 
homeless.


> From:           	<boles at csus.edu>
> 
> 
> I have not had much luck in finding a good textbook
> for a upper division undergraduate social work
> course on homelessness.  Jim Baumohl's "Homelessness
> in America" is wonderful, but it is a bit dated (1996).
> 
> Does anyone have a recommendation?
> 
> (Another book I am using is "Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Making
> it in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.)
> 
> Mimi Lewis
> Division of Social Work
> California State University, Sacramento
> 
>