Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Poverty & Homelessness

In this illuminating examination of our national welfare policy, award-winning veteran reporter and writer LynNell Hancock offers an intimate, heart-wrenching, and beautifully rendered portrait of three women and their families as they struggle to find their way through the new rules and regulations of the public assistance system.

Hands to Work takes us on a journey within the day-to-day struggles of these women, describing their hopes, regrets, and deepest dreams. Hancock demystifies contemporary misconceptions of poverty and illustrates how welfare policy and reform have...

Growing Up Empty is a study of the hidden hunger epidemic that still remains largely unacknowledged at the highest political levels and "an unforgettable exploration of public policy, its failures and its victims" (William Raspberry, Washington Post).

Twenty years after Ronald Reagan declared that hunger was no longer an American problem, Schwartz-Nobel shows that hunger has reached epic proportions, running rampant through urban, rural, and suburban communities, affecting blacks, whites, Asians, Christians and Jews, and nonbelievers alike.

Among the people...

While the...

"The best sort of introductory study... packed with enlightening information." The Times Literary Supplement

Poor whites have been isolated from mainstream white Southern culture and have been in turn stereotyped as rednecks and Holy Rollers, discriminated against, and misunderstood. In their isolation, they have developed a unique subculture and defended it with a tenacity and pride that puzzles and confuses the larger society. Written 25 years ago, this book was one scholar s attempt to understand these people and their culture. For this new edition, Wayne Flynt has provided a new...

"This is a major contribution to the literature on social participation and voluntary action. It is the first systematic ethnographic study I know that treats volunteers and the institutions they create." -John Van Til, author of Growing Civil Society

"Students and faculty interested in the issue of homelessness will find the book instructive... Recommended." -Choice

Why do people volunteer, and what motivates them to stick with it? How do local organizations create community? How does voluntary participation foster moral development in volunteers to create a better...

Burton offers a thorough and thoughtful review of research and arguments concerning poverty in the United States. He cites and summarizes the views of influential conservative thinkers and he provides solid evidence to defeat their arguments. While conservative writers have traditionally presented the poor as lazy and unfortunate offshoots of a generally prosperous nation, Burton convincingly demonstrates that poverty in America is widespread and that it is not caused by a lack of ambition.

The text begins with an overview of the true extent of poverty in America, including an...

This book is designed to help readers navigate through the vast and rapidly growing literature on poverty in urban America. The major themes, topics, debates, and issues are examined through an analysis of eight basic questions about the nature and problem of urban poverty: *What is poverty, and how is it measured? *What kinds of national policies have been utilized to manage poverty? *What are the major characteristics and trends associated with poverty in America, and how are race and ethnicity reflected in these trends? *What are the major explanations for persistent poverty in the...

Winner, A Choice Outstanding Academic Book

In the decade since President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 into law--amidst promises that it would "end welfare as we know it"--have the reforms ending entitlements and moving toward time limits and work requirements lifted Texas families once living on welfare out of poverty, or merely stricken their names from the administrative rolls?

Under welfare reform, Texas has continued with low monthly payments and demanding eligibility criteria. Many families who could...

A legendary figure in the realms of public policy and academia, John Gilderbloom is one of the foremost urban-planning researchers of our time, producing groundbreaking studies on housing markets, design, location, regulation, financing, and community building. Now, in Invisible City, he turns his eye to fundamental questions regarding housing for the elderly, the disabled, and the poor. Why is it that some locales can offer affordable, accessible, and attractive housing, while the large majority of cities fail to do so? Invisible City calls for a brave new...

Homelessness strikes in all types of nations, from wealthy western nations to poor undeveloped countries. Each government and culture attends to this worldwide problem differently. This work collects eleven case studies of selected countries from around the world in order to offer a wide perspective on the dilemma of homelessness. Students can use this ready reference to compare and contrast homelessness populations, analyze the ways in which various countries approach this issue, and to evaluate what is precluding and encouraging this reaching issue.

The problem of homelessness is...

As Jeff Singleton shows, the rapid expansion of unemployment relief in the early 1930s generated pressures which led to the first federal welfare programs. However the process has received relatively little attention from historians, and unemployment relief does not play a major role in discussions of the current state of welfare.

Singleton seeks not only to fill this gap, but to challenge popular interpretations of relief policy in the early 1930s. He shows that relief was expanding prior to the depression and that the modern aspects of social policy implemented in the 1920s profoundly...