A Nation In Denial
The Truth About Homelessness
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- $49.99
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- $49.99
Publisher Description
This book presents a comprehensive review of the scientific evidence that up to 85 percent of all homeless adults suffer the ravages of substance abuse and mental illness, resulting in the social isolation that has been the hallmark of homelessness in the United States since colonial days. .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This pointed, valuable critique, mixing history and analysis, debunks much received wisdom about homelessness. As activists with first-hand experience in helping the homeless, Baum and Burnes learned that homelessness was the effect less of social and economic forces than of ``personal lives out of control.'' Unlike most poor people, they note, the homeless lack relationships and social support. The authors attribute increases in the ranks of the homeless to the population increase of the baby boom, the growth of the underclass, the lack of facilities to treat drunks (who formerly were jailed) and the deinstitutionalization of mental patients. The authors' dismissal of structural analysis is sometimes too facile, as in their cursory treatment of the decline of single-room occupancy hotels in cities. Still, they are reformers. Though they flay liberals who see only systemic failure, the authors also criticize conservatives who see homelessness as a personal failing. Rather, they call for increased programs to address the mental illness and alcohol and drug abuse that beset a large majority of the homeless, offering a model program in Portland, Oreg., as an example.
