In the Midst of Plenty: Homelessness and What To Do About It

by Marybeth Shinn, Jill Khadduri

Foreword by Nan Roman, President and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness This book explains how to end the U.S. homelessness crisis by bringing together the best scholarship on the subject and sharing solutions that both local communities and national policy-makers can apply now. In the Midst of Plenty shifts understanding of homelessness away from individual disability to larger contexts of poverty, income inequality, housing affordability, and social exclusion. Homelessness experts Shinn and Khadduri provide guidance on how to end homelessness for people who experience it and how to prevent so many people from reaching the point where they have no alternative to sleeping on the street or in emergency shelters. The authors show that we know how to end homelessness―if we devote the necessary resources to doing so. In the Midst of Plenty: Homelessness and What to Do About It is an excellent resource for policy-makers, professionals in the homeless services system, and anyone else who wants to end homelessness. It also can serve as a text in undergraduate or masters courses in public policy, sociology, psychology, social work, urban studies, or housing policy. "The knowledgeable and thoughtful authors of this book―two brilliant women who know as much as anyone in the country about the nature of homelessness and its solutions―have done a great service by taking us on a journey through the history of homelessness, how our responses have changed, and how we can end it."
― Nan Roman, President and CEO National Alliance to End Homelessness. "Shinn and Khadduri's new book is a thorough yet concise examination of what we know about the nature and causes of homelessness, and the crucial lessons learned. This critically important work provides a roadmap to restoring basic housing and income security as viable policy options, in the face of our daunting inequality divide that otherwise threatens millions with destitution and homelessness."
― Dennis Culhane, Dana and Andrew Stone Professor of Social Policy, University of Pennsylvania "Marybeth Shinn and Jill Khadduri have combined their significant expertise to create an essential guide about the history of modern homelessness and to offer a clear path forward to end this American tragedy. Their policy recommendations on ending homelessness are culled from the best about what we know works."
― Barbara Poppe, Executive Director US Interagency Council on Homeless, 2009-2014

Genres: Nonfiction, Cities, Urban Planning

248 pages, Paperback

Published April 6, 2020

Reviews

[Ryan Greer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an incredibly dense book that is both expertly researched and difficult to get through due to its data-centric style. I worked my way back to this book after reading Homelessness is a Housing Problem by Gregg Colburn and while both are very well done, I'd recommend Gregg's book for the reader who is looking to educate themselves on myths and root causes of homelessness and I'd recommend this book for the reader who works in policy or homelessness prevention or is otherwise looking for data-driven information to steer their strategic planning. My book is riddled with post-it notes highlighting important data that Marybeth Shinn and Jill Khadduri have clearly spent a great deal of time investigating and refining.

Here are some highlights:

When asked to imagine a homeless person, most people think of an ill-kempt middle-aged man. It is true that there are more adults than children who are homeless, but the age at which a person in the United States is most likely to spend a night in shelter is infancy. (19)

As the estimates of numbers of chronically homeless people show, only about a quarter of individuals and 5% of families remain homeless for as long as a year. (27)

One quarter of all episodes of poverty in America begin with the birth of a child. (38)

Because most families who become homeless have young children, affordable child care may be the single most important service for families. (79)

We find the evidence compelling that long-term housing subsidies end homelessness for families with children and that supportive housing with voluntary services ends it for most high-needs individuals. These programs keep people housed, without requiring that they first become housing-ready. (90)

Coordinated entry has many challenges. In a well-functioning service system, people who are hardest to house get the most services, so it may seem that services are associated with poor outcomes. Just as it is fallacious to assume that extensive services given to people with high needs must be failures because many recipients still struggle, it is fallacious to assume that light-touch programs are successes because most graduates do well. (108)

Service providers must decide whether their goal is to prevent and end homelessness or to reward what they see as good behavior... If the goal is to prevent homelessness, worthiness should not be a limiting factor. (125)

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good. Marshals much of the recent research into a clear discussion.
Gets the structural factors right:

“Los Angeles is a poster child for the dynamics we described in Chapter 2—high rents driven by high overall demand for housing along with supply constraints and a housing stock that does not filter down to the substantial percentage of Angelinos with poverty‐level incomes.”

But only spends about five pages on these supply constraints and building social housing. I always harp about this, but I think housing abundance should be 25-50% of this conversation and homelessness literature mostly ignores this dimension (or flatly denies it).

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the Midst of Plenty is an invaluable and exhaustive resource for practitioners, government officials, funders, researchers, advocates, and anyone else interested in a thoughtful examination of the true causes of homelessness, a clear-eyed look at homelessness and housing research to date, and a comprehensive summary of the steps need to address our current housing crisis.  

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched, comprehensive scholarly look at homelessness and its prevention. Lots of facts and figures. The net, net is we as a society know how to end and prevent homelessness. Just need the will (money) to do it.

[RYAN PHAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laminated Cover