A Nation in Denial: The Truth about Homelessness

This pointed, valuable critique, mixing history and analysis, debunks much received wisdom about homelessness. As activists with first-hand experience in helping the homeless, Baum and Burnes learned that homelessness was the effect less of social and economic forces than of ``personal lives out of control.'' Unlike most poor people, they note, the homeless lack relationships and social support. The authors attribute increases in the ranks of the homeless to the population increase of the baby boom, the growth of the underclass, the lack of facilities to treat drunks (who formerly were jailed) and the deinstitutionalization of mental patients. The authors' dismissal of structural analysis is sometimes too facile, as in their cursory treatment of the decline of single-room occupancy hotels in cities. Still, they are reformers. Though they flay liberals who see only systemic failure, the authors also criticize conservatives who see homelessness as a personal failing. Rather, they call for increased programs to address the mental illness and alcohol and drug abuse that beset a large majority of the homeless, offering a model program in Portland, Oreg., as an example. (June)