Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders

Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders

Author: Teresa Gowan

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 0816648697

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Gowan shows some of the diverse ways that men on the street in San Francisco struggle for survival, autonomy, and self-respect. Living for weeks at a time among homeless men--working side-by-side with them as they collected cans, bottles, and scrap metal; helping them set up camp; watching and listening as they panhandled and hawked newspapers; and accompanying them into soup kitchens, jails, welfare offices, and shelters--Gowan immersed herself in their routines, their personal stories, and their perspectives on life on the streets. She observes a wide range of survival techniques, from the illicit to the industrious, from drug dealing to dumpster diving. She also discovered that prevailing discussions about homelessness and its causes--homelessness as pathology, homelessness as moral failure, and homelessness as systemic failure--powerfully affect how homeless people see themselves and their ability to change their situation.


Book Synopsis Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders by : Teresa Gowan

Download or read book Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders written by Teresa Gowan and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gowan shows some of the diverse ways that men on the street in San Francisco struggle for survival, autonomy, and self-respect. Living for weeks at a time among homeless men--working side-by-side with them as they collected cans, bottles, and scrap metal; helping them set up camp; watching and listening as they panhandled and hawked newspapers; and accompanying them into soup kitchens, jails, welfare offices, and shelters--Gowan immersed herself in their routines, their personal stories, and their perspectives on life on the streets. She observes a wide range of survival techniques, from the illicit to the industrious, from drug dealing to dumpster diving. She also discovered that prevailing discussions about homelessness and its causes--homelessness as pathology, homelessness as moral failure, and homelessness as systemic failure--powerfully affect how homeless people see themselves and their ability to change their situation.


Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders

Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders

Author: Teresa Gowan

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2010-07-10

Total Pages: 521

ISBN-13: 1452942617

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Winner of the 2011 Robert Park Award for the Best Book in Community and Urban Sociology, American Sociological Association, 2011 Co-winner of the 2011 Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book in the Sociology of Culture, American Sociological Association, 2011 When homelessness reemerged in American cities during the 1980s at levels not seen since the Great Depression, it initially provoked shock and outrage. Within a few years, however, what had been perceived as a national crisis came to be seen as a nuisance, with early sympathies for the plight of the homeless giving way to compassion fatigue and then condemnation. Debates around the problem of homelessness—often set in terms of sin, sickness, and the failure of the social system—have come to profoundly shape how homeless people survive and make sense of their plights. In Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders, Teresa Gowan vividly depicts the lives of homeless men in San Francisco and analyzes the influence of the homelessness industry on the streets, in the shelters, and on public policy. Gowan shows some of the diverse ways that men on the street in San Francisco struggle for survival, autonomy, and self-respect. Living for weeks at a time among homeless men—working side-by-side with them as they collected cans, bottles, and scrap metal; helping them set up camp; watching and listening as they panhandled and hawked newspapers; and accompanying them into soup kitchens, jails, welfare offices, and shelters—Gowan immersed herself in their routines, their personal stories, and their perspectives on life on the streets. She observes a wide range of survival techniques, from the illicit to the industrious, from drug dealing to dumpster diving. She also discovered that prevailing discussions about homelessness and its causes—homelessness as pathology, homelessness as moral failure, and homelessness as systemic failure—powerfully affect how homeless people see themselves and their ability to change their situation. Drawing on five years of fieldwork, this powerful ethnography of men living on the streets of the most liberal city in America, Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders, makes clear that the way we talk about issues of extreme poverty has real consequences for how we address this problem—and for the homeless themselves.


Book Synopsis Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders by : Teresa Gowan

Download or read book Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders written by Teresa Gowan and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2010-07-10 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2011 Robert Park Award for the Best Book in Community and Urban Sociology, American Sociological Association, 2011 Co-winner of the 2011 Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book in the Sociology of Culture, American Sociological Association, 2011 When homelessness reemerged in American cities during the 1980s at levels not seen since the Great Depression, it initially provoked shock and outrage. Within a few years, however, what had been perceived as a national crisis came to be seen as a nuisance, with early sympathies for the plight of the homeless giving way to compassion fatigue and then condemnation. Debates around the problem of homelessness—often set in terms of sin, sickness, and the failure of the social system—have come to profoundly shape how homeless people survive and make sense of their plights. In Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders, Teresa Gowan vividly depicts the lives of homeless men in San Francisco and analyzes the influence of the homelessness industry on the streets, in the shelters, and on public policy. Gowan shows some of the diverse ways that men on the street in San Francisco struggle for survival, autonomy, and self-respect. Living for weeks at a time among homeless men—working side-by-side with them as they collected cans, bottles, and scrap metal; helping them set up camp; watching and listening as they panhandled and hawked newspapers; and accompanying them into soup kitchens, jails, welfare offices, and shelters—Gowan immersed herself in their routines, their personal stories, and their perspectives on life on the streets. She observes a wide range of survival techniques, from the illicit to the industrious, from drug dealing to dumpster diving. She also discovered that prevailing discussions about homelessness and its causes—homelessness as pathology, homelessness as moral failure, and homelessness as systemic failure—powerfully affect how homeless people see themselves and their ability to change their situation. Drawing on five years of fieldwork, this powerful ethnography of men living on the streets of the most liberal city in America, Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders, makes clear that the way we talk about issues of extreme poverty has real consequences for how we address this problem—and for the homeless themselves.


Cracks in the Pavement

Cracks in the Pavement

Author: Martin Sanchez-Jankowski

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2008-09-02

Total Pages: 505

ISBN-13: 0520942450

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Woven throughout with rich details of everyday life, this original, on-the-ground study of poor neighborhoods challenges much prevailing wisdom about urban poverty, shedding new light on the people, institutions, and culture in these communities. Over the course of nearly a decade, Martín Sánchez-Jankowski immersed himself in life in neighborhoods in New York and Los Angeles to investigate how social change and social preservation transpire among the urban poor. Looking at five community mainstays—the housing project, the small grocery store, the barbershop and the beauty salon, the gang, and the local high school—he discovered how these institutions provide a sense of order, continuity, and stability in places often thought to be chaotic, disorganized, and disheartened. His provocative and ground-breaking study provides new data on urban poverty and also advances a new theory of how poor neighborhoods function, illuminating the creativity and resilience that characterize the lives of those who experience the hardships associated with economic deprivation.


Book Synopsis Cracks in the Pavement by : Martin Sanchez-Jankowski

Download or read book Cracks in the Pavement written by Martin Sanchez-Jankowski and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2008-09-02 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Woven throughout with rich details of everyday life, this original, on-the-ground study of poor neighborhoods challenges much prevailing wisdom about urban poverty, shedding new light on the people, institutions, and culture in these communities. Over the course of nearly a decade, Martín Sánchez-Jankowski immersed himself in life in neighborhoods in New York and Los Angeles to investigate how social change and social preservation transpire among the urban poor. Looking at five community mainstays—the housing project, the small grocery store, the barbershop and the beauty salon, the gang, and the local high school—he discovered how these institutions provide a sense of order, continuity, and stability in places often thought to be chaotic, disorganized, and disheartened. His provocative and ground-breaking study provides new data on urban poverty and also advances a new theory of how poor neighborhoods function, illuminating the creativity and resilience that characterize the lives of those who experience the hardships associated with economic deprivation.


Favela

Favela

Author: Janice Perlman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-06-10

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 9780199798971

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Janice Perlman wrote the first in-depth account of life in the favelas, a book hailed as one of the most important works in global urban studies in the last 30 years. Now, in Favela, Perlman carries that story forward to the present. Re-interviewing many longtime favela residents whom she had first met in 1969--as well as their children and grandchildren--Perlman offers the only long-term perspective available on the favelados as they struggle for a better life. Perlman discovers that while educational levels have risen, democracy has replaced dictatorship, and material conditions have improved, many residents feel more marginalized than ever. The greatest change is the explosion of drug and arms trade and the high incidence of fatal violence that has resulted. Yet the greatest challenge of all is job creation--decent work for decent pay. If unemployment and under-paid employment are not addressed, she argues, all other efforts will fail to resolve the fundamental issues. Foreign Affairs praises Perlman for writing "with compassion, artistry, and intelligence, using stirring personal stories to illustrate larger points substantiated with statistical analysis."


Book Synopsis Favela by : Janice Perlman

Download or read book Favela written by Janice Perlman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-10 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Janice Perlman wrote the first in-depth account of life in the favelas, a book hailed as one of the most important works in global urban studies in the last 30 years. Now, in Favela, Perlman carries that story forward to the present. Re-interviewing many longtime favela residents whom she had first met in 1969--as well as their children and grandchildren--Perlman offers the only long-term perspective available on the favelados as they struggle for a better life. Perlman discovers that while educational levels have risen, democracy has replaced dictatorship, and material conditions have improved, many residents feel more marginalized than ever. The greatest change is the explosion of drug and arms trade and the high incidence of fatal violence that has resulted. Yet the greatest challenge of all is job creation--decent work for decent pay. If unemployment and under-paid employment are not addressed, she argues, all other efforts will fail to resolve the fundamental issues. Foreign Affairs praises Perlman for writing "with compassion, artistry, and intelligence, using stirring personal stories to illustrate larger points substantiated with statistical analysis."


At Home on the Street

At Home on the Street

Author: Jason Adam Wasserman

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13:

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It is big and bright with lots of page-turning learning about the Word of God. The "Read and Share Bible" is unique in its format and solid in Bible teaching. Packed with 200 stories that are simple re-tellings, the gigantic message of God's love and care is sure to win the hearts of little ones and give them a strong Bible foundation to guide their lives. With over 400 pieces of art, this Bible Storybook is highly interactive as it encourages Scripture Memory and reinforces comprehension with quick activities foryou and your children. Stories include Noah, David, Joseph, Abraham, Paul, and Christ as well as many other timeless Biblical characters and lessons.


Book Synopsis At Home on the Street by : Jason Adam Wasserman

Download or read book At Home on the Street written by Jason Adam Wasserman and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is big and bright with lots of page-turning learning about the Word of God. The "Read and Share Bible" is unique in its format and solid in Bible teaching. Packed with 200 stories that are simple re-tellings, the gigantic message of God's love and care is sure to win the hearts of little ones and give them a strong Bible foundation to guide their lives. With over 400 pieces of art, this Bible Storybook is highly interactive as it encourages Scripture Memory and reinforces comprehension with quick activities foryou and your children. Stories include Noah, David, Joseph, Abraham, Paul, and Christ as well as many other timeless Biblical characters and lessons.


Callous Objects

Callous Objects

Author: Robert Rosenberger

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2017-12-15

Total Pages: 105

ISBN-13: 1452956871

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Uncovering injustices built into our everyday surroundings Callous Objects unearths cases in which cities push homeless people out of public spaces through a combination of policy and strategic design. Robert Rosenberger examines such commonplace devices as garbage cans, fences, signage, and benches—all of which reveal political agendas beneath the surface. Such objects have evolved, through a confluence of design and law, to be open to some uses and closed to others, but always capable of participating in collective ends on a large scale. Rosenberger brings together ideas from the philosophy of technology, social theory, and feminist epistemology to spotlight the widespread anti-homeless ideology built into our communities and enacted in law. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.


Book Synopsis Callous Objects by : Robert Rosenberger

Download or read book Callous Objects written by Robert Rosenberger and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncovering injustices built into our everyday surroundings Callous Objects unearths cases in which cities push homeless people out of public spaces through a combination of policy and strategic design. Robert Rosenberger examines such commonplace devices as garbage cans, fences, signage, and benches—all of which reveal political agendas beneath the surface. Such objects have evolved, through a confluence of design and law, to be open to some uses and closed to others, but always capable of participating in collective ends on a large scale. Rosenberger brings together ideas from the philosophy of technology, social theory, and feminist epistemology to spotlight the widespread anti-homeless ideology built into our communities and enacted in law. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.


The Value of Homelessness

The Value of Homelessness

Author: Craig Willse

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2015-09-15

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1452945284

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It is all too easy to assume that social service programs respond to homelessness, seeking to prevent and understand it. The Value of Homelessness, however, argues that homelessness today is an effect of social services and sciences, which shape not only what counts as such but what will?or ultimately won’t?be done about it. Through a history of U.S. housing insecurity from the 1930s to the present, Craig Willse traces the emergence and consolidation of a homeless services industry. How to most efficiently allocate resources to control ongoing insecurity has become the goal, he shows, rather than how to eradicate the social, economic, and political bases of housing needs. Drawing on his own years of work in homeless advocacy and activist settings, as well as interviews conducted with program managers, counselors, and staff at homeless services organizations in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, Willse provides the first analysis of how housing insecurity becomes organized as a governable social problem. An unprecedented and powerful historical account of the development of contemporary ideas about homelessness and how to manage homelessness, The Value of Homelessness offers new ways for students and scholars of social work, urban inequality, racial capitalism, and political theory to comprehend the central role of homelessness in governance and economy today.


Book Synopsis The Value of Homelessness by : Craig Willse

Download or read book The Value of Homelessness written by Craig Willse and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is all too easy to assume that social service programs respond to homelessness, seeking to prevent and understand it. The Value of Homelessness, however, argues that homelessness today is an effect of social services and sciences, which shape not only what counts as such but what will?or ultimately won’t?be done about it. Through a history of U.S. housing insecurity from the 1930s to the present, Craig Willse traces the emergence and consolidation of a homeless services industry. How to most efficiently allocate resources to control ongoing insecurity has become the goal, he shows, rather than how to eradicate the social, economic, and political bases of housing needs. Drawing on his own years of work in homeless advocacy and activist settings, as well as interviews conducted with program managers, counselors, and staff at homeless services organizations in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, Willse provides the first analysis of how housing insecurity becomes organized as a governable social problem. An unprecedented and powerful historical account of the development of contemporary ideas about homelessness and how to manage homelessness, The Value of Homelessness offers new ways for students and scholars of social work, urban inequality, racial capitalism, and political theory to comprehend the central role of homelessness in governance and economy today.


Racial Criminalization of Migrants in the 21st Century

Racial Criminalization of Migrants in the 21st Century

Author: Professor Salvatore Palidda

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2013-02-28

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 1409497461

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Over the last two decades in the West, there has been a significant increase in the arrest, imprisonment and detention of migrants. The racial criminalization and victimization of migrants and Roma people has led judicial authorities, local governments, the police, mass media and the general population to perceive migrants and 'gypsies' as responsible for a wide range of offences. Taking into consideration the political and cultural conditions that affect and interconnect societies of emigration and immigration, the contributors examine and compare a range of cases in Europe and the United States. The contributions demonstrate how the persecution of the 'current enemy' is the 'total political fact' of the 21st century in that it ensures consensus and business, or what might be termed the 'crime deal' of today. This provocative book has international appeal and will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policymakers with an interest in migration and social and ethnic control.


Book Synopsis Racial Criminalization of Migrants in the 21st Century by : Professor Salvatore Palidda

Download or read book Racial Criminalization of Migrants in the 21st Century written by Professor Salvatore Palidda and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-02-28 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last two decades in the West, there has been a significant increase in the arrest, imprisonment and detention of migrants. The racial criminalization and victimization of migrants and Roma people has led judicial authorities, local governments, the police, mass media and the general population to perceive migrants and 'gypsies' as responsible for a wide range of offences. Taking into consideration the political and cultural conditions that affect and interconnect societies of emigration and immigration, the contributors examine and compare a range of cases in Europe and the United States. The contributions demonstrate how the persecution of the 'current enemy' is the 'total political fact' of the 21st century in that it ensures consensus and business, or what might be termed the 'crime deal' of today. This provocative book has international appeal and will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policymakers with an interest in migration and social and ethnic control.


Down on Their Luck

Down on Their Luck

Author: David A. Snow

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1993-02-12

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 0520079892

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David Snow and Leon Anderson show us the wretched face of homelessness in late twentieth-century America in countless cities across the nation. Through hundreds of hours of interviews, participant observation, and random tracking of homeless people through social service agencies in Austin, Texas. Snow and Anderson reveal who the homeless are, how they live, and why they have ended up on the streets. Debunking current stereotypes of the homeless. Down on Their Luck sketches a portrait of men and women who are highly adaptive, resourceful, and pragmatic. Their survival is a tale of human resilience and determination, not one of frailty and disability.


Book Synopsis Down on Their Luck by : David A. Snow

Download or read book Down on Their Luck written by David A. Snow and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1993-02-12 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Snow and Leon Anderson show us the wretched face of homelessness in late twentieth-century America in countless cities across the nation. Through hundreds of hours of interviews, participant observation, and random tracking of homeless people through social service agencies in Austin, Texas. Snow and Anderson reveal who the homeless are, how they live, and why they have ended up on the streets. Debunking current stereotypes of the homeless. Down on Their Luck sketches a portrait of men and women who are highly adaptive, resourceful, and pragmatic. Their survival is a tale of human resilience and determination, not one of frailty and disability.


Urban Injustice

Urban Injustice

Author: David Hilfiker

Publisher: Seven Stories Press

Published: 2011-01-04

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 1609800346

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David Hilfiker has committed his life, both as a writer and a doctor, to people in need, writing about the urban poor with whom he’s spent all his days for the last two decades. In Urban Injustice, he explains in beautiful and simple language how the myth that the urban poor siphon off precious government resources is contradicted by the facts, and how most programs help some of the people some of the time but are almost never sufficiently orchestrated to enable people to escape the cycle of urban poverty. Hilfiker is able to present a surprising history of poverty programs since the New Deal, and shows that many of the biggest programs were extremely successful at attaining the goals set out for them. Even so, Hilfiker reveals, most of the best and biggest programs were "social insurance" programs, like Medicare and Social Security, that primarily assisted the middle class, not the poor. Whereas, "public assistance" programs, directed specifically towards the poor, were often extremely effective as far as they went, but were instituted with far less ambitious goals. In a book that is short, sweet, and completely without academic verboseness or pretension, Hilfiker makes a clear path through the complex history of societal poverty, the obvious weaknesses and surprising strengths of societal responses to poverty thus far, and offers an analysis of models of assistance from around the world that might perhaps assist us in making a better world for our children once we decide that is what we must do.


Book Synopsis Urban Injustice by : David Hilfiker

Download or read book Urban Injustice written by David Hilfiker and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Hilfiker has committed his life, both as a writer and a doctor, to people in need, writing about the urban poor with whom he’s spent all his days for the last two decades. In Urban Injustice, he explains in beautiful and simple language how the myth that the urban poor siphon off precious government resources is contradicted by the facts, and how most programs help some of the people some of the time but are almost never sufficiently orchestrated to enable people to escape the cycle of urban poverty. Hilfiker is able to present a surprising history of poverty programs since the New Deal, and shows that many of the biggest programs were extremely successful at attaining the goals set out for them. Even so, Hilfiker reveals, most of the best and biggest programs were "social insurance" programs, like Medicare and Social Security, that primarily assisted the middle class, not the poor. Whereas, "public assistance" programs, directed specifically towards the poor, were often extremely effective as far as they went, but were instituted with far less ambitious goals. In a book that is short, sweet, and completely without academic verboseness or pretension, Hilfiker makes a clear path through the complex history of societal poverty, the obvious weaknesses and surprising strengths of societal responses to poverty thus far, and offers an analysis of models of assistance from around the world that might perhaps assist us in making a better world for our children once we decide that is what we must do.