Late in the 1970s, Americans began to notice more people sleeping in public places, wandering the streets with their belongings in shopping bags, begging for handouts and rooting through garbage bins for food or cans. By the late 1980s, the homeless were everywhere, a grim reminder of America's social and economic troubles. How widespread is this problem, how did it happen, and what can be done about it? These are the questions explored by Christopher Jencks, one of America's foremost analysts of social problems. Merely determining the number of homeless people is no easy matter. Jencks shows that estimates of the homeless population often depend more on politics than on hard evidence. However, if we count only people who sleep in shelters or public places, the number has increased four-fold in the past 15 years. He examines the standard explanations for this disturbing trend and finds that the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, the invention of crack cocaine, rising joblessness among men, declining marriage rates, cuts in welfare benefits and the destruction of skid row have all played a role. Changes in the housing market have had less impact than many claim, however, and real federal housing subsidies actually doubled during the 1980s. Jencks also pinpoints policies that have gone wrong. Although deinstitutionalization began in the 1950s, it was not until the late 1970s, when involuntary commitment was virtually abolished, that homelessness became common among the mentally ill. Finally, he proposes several practical approaches that might help the homeless. Anyone who believes, like Samuel Johnson, that the quality of a civilization is measured by the way it treats its most unfortunate members should find this book an enlightening effort to reconcile the claims of compassion and prudence.

Cr�ticas

A thoughtful analysis of homelessness...Jencks' concessions to political realities will make his study controversial. -- Mary Carroll "Booklist" Jencks is a savvy and clear-thinking policy analyst...An honest and illuminating portrait of homelessness in America... A superb book. -- Douglas J. Besharov "Washington Post Book World" Because homelessness has become so politicised, its possible causes and cures the battleground of lobbies, the true nature of the problem has been lost in an ideological blur. This readable and relentlessly logical book...successfully strips away the dogma. Jencks...subjects the various explanations of homelessness to rigorous analysis. Much conventional wisdom withers under his scrutiny...Jencks's thinking is guided by a zeal for the truth that has been sadly lacking in homelessness policy over the past decade. -- Heather MacDonald "Wall Street Journal" Much of this concise text is taken up evaluating the validity of claims made by liberals and conservatives as to the causes of the '80s homelessness epidemic...No previous work, to my knowledge, has tried so assiduously to winnow fact from rhetoric in so many complex policy realms. -- Kathleen Hirsch "Boston Sunday Globe" How is it that a 57-year-old sociology professor can transcend hyped-up numbers, ideological cant, and government obfuscation to tell us roughly how many homeless there are and where they come from? Our biggest and best news organizations have been unable to perform this simple task for nearly fifteen years. -- Jon Katz "New York Magazine" Clear, unclouded by political preconceptions and rigorously logical, Jencks takes a much needed fresh look at debates that generally yield more heat than light...By the end of the book, even readers who disagree with his conclusions will feel thoroughly educated about one of America's most pressing social problems. -- Philip Kasinitz "Newsday" In his new book, Christopher Jencks sets out to bring clarity and sense to the public debate. He systematically reviews and evaluates a large body of research literature on the homeless and, in less than 200 pages of tersely written and tightly argued text, he deftly leads the reader through a maze of assertions...He writes lucidly and compellingly and, what is more, he does not pull his punches..."The Homeless" is undoubtedly a major achievement... Jencks' findings defy not only the wisdom of the average sidewalk sociologist, but also the arguments of many established researchers..."The Homeless," with its challenging findings, is a bold book...Mr. Jencks, with his masterly exposition of complex data and his discriminating, well-balanced assessments, goes a long way toward restoring confidence in the capacity of the social sciences to transcend politically loaded policy analysis. He also goes a long way toward restoring a modicum of realism to public debate. -- Brigitte Berger "New York Times Book Review"

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