Showing titles in Poverty & Homelessness

A secret torment for some, a proud responsibility for others, "black tax" is a daily reality for thousands of Black South Africans. In this thought-provoking and moving anthology, a provocative range of voices share their deeply personal stories.

Activist Terence Lester knows it's hard to change the world. But mobilizing and acting together empowers us to do what we can't do as isolated individuals. Lester looks at the obstacles that prevent us from getting involved, and he offers practical ways that we can accomplish things together as groups, families, churches, and communities. He helps us find our place in the larger picture, discerning the unique ways we can contribute and make a difference. By connecting with our neighbors and discovering our own paths of service, we can drastically change how we follow Christ.

Many believe that the War on Poverty, launched by President Johnson in 1964, ended in failure. In 2010, the official poverty rate was 15 percent, almost as high as when the War on Poverty was declared. Historical and contemporary accounts often portray the War on Poverty as a costly experiment that created doubts about the ability of public policies to address complex social problems. Legacies of the War on Poverty, drawing from fifty years of empirical evidence, documents that this popular view is too negative.

In the works for more than twenty years, Interstate 69 has been both eagerly anticipated as an economic godsend and the center of a firestorm of protests by local environmentalists, farmers, ranchers, anarchists, and others who question both the wisdom of building more highways and the merits of globalization. Part history, part travelogue, Interstate 69 chronicles the last great highway project in America, introducing the people who have worked tirelessly to build it or stop it from being built, and the many places it would change forever.

El autor retoma el relato de una vida de desamparo y violencia la noche en que a los dieciséis años, herido de varios balazos, entra a un instituto de menores. Con una prosa madura -cruda y directa-, González nos lleva a un mundo que conoce como pocos. Y como pocos, se aleja de todo cliché. La caída es insoportable. Arden las heridas de bala, desespera la soledad, se subleva la sangre que reclama cocaína, poxirrán y pastillas. ¿Y ahora? Tras las rejas, las voces de otros pibes quieren captarlo para uno de los dos bandos enemigos que manejan el instituto de menores.

Il libro che ha rivelato al mondo l'anima profonda dell'America. I nonni di J.D. sono sporchi, poveri e innamorati quando emigrano giovanissimi dalle regioni dei monti Appalachi verso l’Ohio nella speranza di una vita migliore. Ma quel sogno di benessere e riscatto è solo sfiorato, perché prima di diventare uomo il loro nipote lotterà a lungo con la miseria e la violenza domestica: una madre tossicodipendente, patrigni nullafacenti che si susseguono uno dopo l’altro, vicini di casa alcolisti capaci solamente di sopravvivere con i sussidi e lamentarsi del governo.

Brought to you by Penguin. · The richest eight people control more wealth than the poorest half of the world combined. · Today, 60 per cent of the world's population lives on less than $5 a day. · Though global real GDP has nearly tripled since 1980, 1.1 billion more people are now living in...

Born into poverty in a crime-ridden town and unaware of his Ojibwe heritage, John Eric Aslin’s earliest memories are of a harrowing childhood rife with abuse. This troubling upbringing led him to an adolescence full of crime, when at 21 he was sentenced to life in prison for an accidental death. Thirty-six years later, he’s still behind bars, and almost a senior citizen. This heartbreaking account explores the life of John Aslin, painting a poignant and eye-opening picture of the struggles he faced during his upbringing, and the unfortunate hardships that led him to crime.

In the underground tunnels below Grand Central Terminal, Lee Stringer - homeless and drug-addicted for 11 years - found a pencil to run through his crack pipe. One day he used it to write. Soon writing became a habit that won out over drugs, and before long Stringer had created one of the most powerful urban memoirs of our time. With humane wisdom and a biting wit, Stringer chronicles the unraveling of his seemingly secure existence as a marketing executive and his odyssey of survival on the streets of New York.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Evicted by Mathew Desomond, read by Dion Graham. Arleen spends nearly all her money on rent but is kicked out with her kids in Milwaukee's coldest winter for years. Doreen's home is so filthy her family call it 'the rat hole'...

From poverty and policing, homelessness and overrun prisons to Grenfell and hostile environments, Britain has long been failing those who need our help the most. There is arguably one unifying theme that links all these afflictions: proximity. Proximity is how close we are to the action and how that affects how we assess, relate to and address whatever that action happens to be. Almost every job requires a level of experience and training with the notable exception of the most powerful people in the country—our political class.

A holiday classic by Charles Dickens. Originally published in 1843, Dickens worried about the disparity between the wealthy and the impoverished, and it was his attempt to bring this disparity into the light of day, to appeal to the die-hard capitalists to take care of the downtrodden masses. Since this inequity continues, this story is still popular, and will probably continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

Since the early days of the American republic, political thinkers have maintained that a grossly unequal division of property, wealth, and power would lead to the erosion of democratic life. Yet over the past thirty-five years, neoconservatives and neoliberals alike have redrawn the tenets of American liberalism. Nowhere is this more evident than in our current mainstream political discourse, in which the politics of economic inequality are rarely discussed.

Born into the slums of Glasgow in the late '70s, a 4-year-old John's life is filled with the debris of alcoholism and poverty. Soon after witnessing a drowning, his mother's addictions take over their lives, leaving him starving in their flat, awaiting her return. A concerned neighbor reports her, and he is forcibly taken away from his mother and placed into the care system. There, he dreams of being reunited with her.

On a cold March day in 1893, 26-year-old nurse Lillian Wald rushed through the poverty-stricken streets of New York’s Lower East Side to a squalid bedroom where a young mother lay dying -abandoned by her doctor because she could not pay his fee. The misery in the room and the walk to reach it inspired Wald to establish Henry Street Settlement, which would become one of the most influential social welfare organizations in American history.

Poverty is bad for everyone. Being at the sharp end of disadvantage is shameful, reduces brainpower, and hampers positive action. It increases crime, burdens healthcare systems and raises taxpayers' bills. With millions around the world struggling to make ends meet and increased socioeconomic uncertainty making poverty a more probable prospect for many more, tackling poverty has never been more urgent. The Empathy Fix exposes the realities of poverty and reveals why policies don't work. It is a radical rethink of current efforts to tackle poverty, what it means and how we break the cycle.

GUARDIAN'S TOP BOOK ON THE UK HOUSING CRISIS 'An essential read about a broken housing market.' – Peter Apps, Inside Housing If paying rent feels like a second tax — and saving for a deposit feels impossible — you’re not imagining it. Across the UK housing market, millions of people are stuck in the rent trap: high rents that can exceed mortgage payments, tiny and poorly maintained flats, insecure tenancies, deposit battles, and the constant stress of being forced to move with little notice. Generation Rent is Chloe Timperley’s razor-sharp, eye-opening investigation into ...

Like Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun and Alexander Masters’ Stuart, this is a tour de force of narrative reportage - an intimate portrait of an invisible man. Mohammed Ashraf studied biology in college, and after college he learned how to repair television sets, cut suit lengths, and slice chicken. He has lived in Mumbai, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Surat, and Patna, but this evening he is stoned on a street in Sadar Bazaar, in North Delhi. The morning shall bring hangovers, whiskey breakfasts, and possibly answers to the lingering questions that haunt Ashraf.

The Infirmary Ward takes readers inside the workhouse infirmaries of 19th-century England and Wales, where sickness and poverty collided under the Poor Law. Drawing on official records, inspection reports, and contemporary accounts, this book explores how care was delivered to the poorest and most vulnerable: the sick, the elderly, women in childbirth, children, and those deemed “incurable.” It examines daily life in the wards, medical treatment, nursing, diet, discipline, and the moral assumptions that shaped who deserved comfort and who did not. More than a history of medicine, The ...

The next time someone asks you for money on the street, Josiah Haken wants you to know what you’re doing. He wants you to break through the stereotypes and excuses — the politics and propaganda — the anxiety and questions. He wants you to engage the human being in front of you with confidence, compassion, and a plan. Neighbors with No Doors is your guide to getting there. With over a decade of experience in homeless outreach, Haken contradicts popular falsehoods about the unhoused community and offers helpful, pragmatic steps to becoming a friend and an advocate. Along the way, he ...