Homelessness in American Literature

Homelessness in American Literature PDF

Author: John Allen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-24

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1317726286

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This book analyzes the theme of homelessness in American literature from the Civil War through the depression. Drawing on the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Horatio Alger, Stephen Crane, Jacob Riis, Jack London, Meridel Le Sueur and many others, it reveals how homelessness has been either romanticized or objectified.

Address Unknown

Address Unknown PDF

Author: James D. Wright

Publisher: AldineTransaction

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 0202362574

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Homelessness in America has grown from a minor problem in isolated areas of a few big cities into a near epidemic. Today, scarcely any American city of any appreciable size lacks homeless people. Homeless shelters and programs have become as essential and as commonplace as police protection or water and sewage treatment. What to do for, with, or about the homeless is a nagging and complex social policy issue debated at all levels of government. "Address Unknown" emphasizes the large-scale social and economic forces that have priced an increasingly large segment of the urban poor completely out of the housing market. Seen in this light, the problem of homelessness is that there are too many extremely poor people competing for too few aff ordable housing units. Th e nation would be facing a formidable homelessness problem even if there were no alcoholics, no drug addicts, no deinstitutionalized mentally ill people--no personal pathologies of any kind. Rather than a choice, homelessness is the result of housing markets that have very little to off er to extremely poor people. The plight of the homeless is very visible, and "Address Unknown" is one of the fi rst major investigative studies into the nature and multiple causes of the problem. Wright considers demographic, economic, sociological, and social policy antecedents of homelessness. A hallmark is the delineation of the range of factors involved, including deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, urban renewal, the decrease in lower-skilled jobs, changing political priorities, and bureaucratic obstacles to providing existing social services to the homeless population. "James D. Wright" is a professor in the department of sociology at the University of Central Florida. He has published seventeen books including "Armed and Considered Dangerous" and "Under the Gun" as well as many journal articles. His current research interests include violence, urban poverty and inequality, health and the homeless population, and the "divorce reform" movement.

Citizen Hobo

Citizen Hobo PDF

Author: Todd DePastino

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-03-15

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0226143805

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In the years following the Civil War, a veritable army of homeless men swept across America's "wageworkers' frontier" and forged a beguiling and bedeviling counterculture known as "hobohemia." Celebrating unfettered masculinity and jealously guarding the American road as the preserve of white manhood, hoboes took command of downtown districts and swaggered onto center stage of the new urban culture. Less obviously, perhaps, they also staked their own claims on the American polity, claims that would in fact transform the very entitlements of American citizenship. In this eye-opening work of American history, Todd DePastino tells the epic story of hobohemia's rise and fall, and crafts a stunning new interpretation of the "American century" in the process. Drawing on sources ranging from diaries, letters, and police reports to movies and memoirs, Citizen Hobo breathes life into the largely forgotten world of the road, but it also, crucially, shows how the hobo army so haunted the American body politic that it prompted the creation of an entirely new social order and political economy. DePastino shows how hoboes—with their reputation as dangers to civilization, sexual savages, and professional idlers—became a cultural and political force, influencing the creation of welfare state measures, the promotion of mass consumption, and the suburbanization of America. Citizen Hobo's sweeping retelling of American nationhood in light of enduring struggles over "home" does more than chart the change from "homelessness" to "houselessness." In its breadth and scope, the book offers nothing less than an essential new context for thinking about Americans' struggles against inequality and alienation.

Encyclopedia of Homelessness

Encyclopedia of Homelessness PDF

Author: David Levinson

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2004-06-21

Total Pages: 928

ISBN-13: 0761927514

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A readerʼs guide is provided to assist readers in locating entries on related topics. It classifies entries into 14 general categories: Causes, Cities, Demography and Characteristics, Health issues, History, Housing, Legal issues, Advocacy and policy, Lifestyle issues, Organizations, Perceptions of homelessness, Populations, Research, Service systems and settings, World perspectives and issues.

On the Bowery

On the Bowery PDF

Author: Benedict Giamo

Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 9781587290800

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As both theme and place, the Bowery has been rich in meaning, evocative in association, long in development, and representative of the inherent conflict between culture and subculture. This award-winning interdisciplinary study puts in perspective the social meaning and cultural significance of the Bowery from both historical and contemporary outlooks, spanning the fields of American literature and social history, culture studies, symbolic anthropology, ethnography, and social psychology. "On the Bowery" has special relevance in providing continuity for the systems of thought and methods of intervention that influence responses to the modern condition of homelessness in American cities today.

Homelessness

Homelessness PDF

Author: B. G. Kutais

Publisher: Nova Biomedical Books

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13:

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Homelessness - A Guide to the Literature -- Second Edition

Homelessness in America

Homelessness in America PDF

Author: Michele Wakin

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2022-02-18

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13:

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This title provides a one-stop resource for understanding the crisis of homelessness in the United States. It covers risk factors for homelessness, societal attitudes about the homeless, and public and private resources designed to prevent homelessness and help those in need. There are a number of questions to be answered when addressing the subject of homelessness in the United States. What are the primary causes of homelessness? What are the economic and socioeconomic factors that have an impact on homeless people? What demographic trends can be identified in homeless populations? Is the U.S. addressing the needs and concerns of homeless people adequately? Where are the areas with the highest homeless populations? What can be done to help homeless people who live with mental illness and/or addiction problems? Homelessness in America: A Reference Handbook answers all of these questions and more. It thoroughly examines the history of homelessness in the U.S., shining a light on the key issues, events, policies, and attitudes that contribute to homelessness and shape the experience of being homeless. It places special emphasis on exploring the myriad problems that force people into homelessness, such as inadequate levels of affordable housing, struggles with substance abuse, and gaps in the U.S.' social welfare system. In addition, it explains why some demographic groups are at heightened risk of homelessness.

Down & Out, on the Road

Down & Out, on the Road PDF

Author: Kenneth L. Kusmer

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 0195160967

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"A definitive history of homelessness in the United States..." -- page 4 of cover.

Representations of Homelessness in Contemporary American Literature and Popular Culture

Representations of Homelessness in Contemporary American Literature and Popular Culture PDF

Author: Chelsea Lynn Ratzlaff

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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This thesis explores representations of homelessness using Kristra Ratcliffe’s feminist-rhetorical methodology of Rhetorical Eavesdropping to render audible the cultural logics of neoliberalization and racism that both cause and exacerbate houselessness. Dominant narratives that portray houselessness as a result of personal failure serve to disguise increased privatization, cuts to social services including public housing and healthcare, and environmental deregulation that are principally responsible for the displacement, exploitation, and disposability of human beings for the purpose of capital accumulation. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Cherrie Moraga’s Heroes and Saints are analyzed dialectically for their depictions of colonialism and accumulation through displacement. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Sonia Nazario’s Enrique’s Journey, and Annamarie Tailfeathers’ narrative in Desiree Hellegers’ No Room of Her Own are explored as counter narratives that centralize the voices of houseless people, complicate stigmatization, and render audible the material realities of houselessness. Hubert Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, Mary Harron’s American Psycho, and indie-rock band alt-J’s hit song, “Fitzpleasure,” are interrogated for their underlying themes of gendered and racialized violence in accordance with capitalist ideology. This project therefore attempts to outline common threads for understanding the complex and varied realities of houselessness and concludes by identifying the prevalence of these themes in programs intended to aid the fight for housing justice.