There's No Place Like Home

Anthropological Perspectives on Housing and Homelessness in the United States

Anna Lou Dehavenon

• Publisher: Praeger
• Year: 1999
• Print ISBN:
  9780897896610
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780313029592
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

This collection of essays addresses the lack of shelter—one of the most basic elements of human adaptation—now experienced by many Americans. Based on the presupposition that shelter is a basic human right in the world's richest, most advanced nation, the authors of these essays look more closely than others have yet done at the causes of the current low-income housing crisis and homelessness. Ten anthropologists and a mental health worker use participant observation and other ethnographic methods to observe and document the experiential and geographic diversity of U.S. homelessness. Each chapter focuses on a specific geographic area—urban, suburban, or rural—and a specific category of homeless people—families with children, solitary adults, or both. Based on their findings, the authors also present policy recommendations to ameliorate the housing shortage and prevent homelessness at local, state, and federal levels.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Tables and Figures
• Prologue: Azdak Lives
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Poverty and Homelessness in Rural Upstate New York
• 2. The 1990 Decennial Census and Patterns of Homelessness in a Small New England City
• 3. Doubling-Up: A Strategy of Urban Reciprocity to Avoid Homelessness in Detroit
• 4. Doubling-Up and New York City's Policies for Sheltering Homeless Families
• 5. A Home By Any Means Necessary: Government Policy on Squatting in the Public Housing of a Large Mid-Atlantic City
• 6. Huts for the Homeless: A Low-Technology Approach for Squatters in Atlanta, Georgia
• 7. Piety and Poverty: The Religious Response to the Homeless in Albuquerque, New Mexico
• 8. Suburban Homelessness and Social Space: Strategies of Authority and Local Resistance in Orange County, California
• 9. “There Goes the Neighborhood": Gentrification, Displacement, and Homelessness in Washington, D.C.
• Conclusion
• Epilogue: A Perilous Bridge
• References
• Index
• Contributors