Homeless Children

This sensitive, insightful, and troubling book communicates, through the voices of children, the harsh life experiences of homelessness. Skilled clinical-developmental psychologist Dr. Mary Walsh presents a study that both analyzes the problem of homelessness and conveys the sadness, confusion, poverty, loneliness, and uncertainty with which "shelter" children must cope. Individual chapters address basic relationships common to all children--family, friends, and school--and then consider how these relationships are impacted by homelessness, the factors which lead to this condition, and the crowded, stressful life in the shelters.

What is the social condition of youth in modern society? This is the question taken up by this passionate and substantive book. The author argues that youth are at a crisis state. The crisis has been brought about by the general state of social crisis; violence, questions of political legitimacy, educational decline; as well as the decline of compassion as a core principle of culture. The author draws on a variety of trends and scholarly research to examine the problems of growing up in a high risk society and offers pathways to spiritual renewal and cultural renewal, esential for salvaging the next generation.

This second volume of a series addresses the problem of data collection and specific causes and issues that relate to homelessness. Unique in its attempt to bring systematic data and analysis to bear on the subject, the study focuses upon such critical areas as drug abuse among the homeless, the housing situation that gives rise to homelessness, homeless children, food sources, and problems of employment. The contributors also provide a clearer picture of the homeless population in America by examining both the socioeconomic and demographic correlates and the social-psychiatric dimensions of homelessness.

The number of street children in developed and developing nations is rising, often in the midst of prosperity. These original contributions study and compare the living conditions and educational experiences of homeless children in the United States, Brazil and Cuba. Because social policy and economic factors are central to these children's plights, Mickelson and her contributors employ a political economy perspective to examine the lives of the children and the educational and social programmes - sucessful and unsucessful - that are designed to serve them. The book examines formal and informal programmes, compares and contrasts children's situations in each country, and offers policy recommendations. Throughout the book case studies are combined with recent statistical and demographic facts about each country.

Anthropologists turn their attention to solving the puzzle of why people in some of the most advanced technological societies in the world are homeless, living rough.

Rejecting those who urge a "bootstrap" approach to people living in extreme poverty on the edge of society, sociologist Barbara Arrighi makes an eloquent, compassionate plea for empathy and collective responsibility toward those for whom "either the boots or the straps are missing." This book further offers solutions in consciousness raising, community collaboration, and informed, responsible public policy. The book is a critique of a system that purports to serve yet sometimes impedes the welfare of those who are in need of the basic elements for survival, including affordable shelter. It analyzes the structural factors of poverty and the social psychological costs of being poor and lacking a home. Utilizing interview findings from families who have lived in a shelter in northern Kentucky and from staff members, the book examines the degrading effects of shelter life on women's self-respect and children's development. Rather than an examination of individual pathologies leading to lack of shelter, it centers on women and children living in shelters and offers a sociological study of poverty and the family.