Struggling in the Land of Plenty: Race, Class, and Gender in the Lives of Homeless Families

(Hardback)

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At the conclusion of the twentieth century, the United States economy was booming, but, the gap between the rich and poor widened significantly in the 1990s, poverty rates among women and children skyrocketed, and there was an unprecedented rise in familial homelessness Based on a fouryear ethnographic study, Anne R. Roschelle examines how socially structured race, class, and gender inequality contributed to the rise in family homelessness and the devastating consequences for parents and their children. Struggling in the Land of Plenty analyzes the appalling conditions under which homeless women and children live, the violence endemic to their lives, the role of the welfare state in perpetrating poverty, and their never-ending struggle for survival. Only by exploring the stories of homeless women and children can we begin to construct appropriate social policy.

Reviews

Anne R. Roschelle eloquently explicates how gentrification has exacerbated a nation already hyper-segregated by race, class, and gender, and the problems that so many single mothers must navigate in order to secure even the most modest forms of urban shelter. San Francisco, the site of this ethnography, is the leading face of the homelessness epidemic, along with virtually every city from San Jose to the Wine Country, and Roschelle ventures deep into the spaces where the homeless dwell. Roschelle undergirds all that she reveals with solid sociological theory and practice, and she shows great sensitivity as a researcher to her chronically subjugated research sample. To all of my academic colleagues, neighbors, and other associates, this book will certainly help answer what you frequently ask me, a Northern California native: What has happened to the diverse "funkytown" we once knew -- Katrina Bell McDonald, Johns Hopkins University
As gentrification becomes a growing concern in cities across the country Struggling in the Land of Plenty is a must-read! Capturing the economic, political, and social conditions resulting in an unprecedented rise in homeless that includes families, Roschelle offers an alarming analysis of the consequences of welfare reform, violence experienced by women and children, the disappearing social support and extended kinship networks previously relied on during a time of crisis. The violence perpetuated in our failure to address urban poverty becomes even more evident in the stories of homeless kids. -- Mary Romero, Arizona State University, author of The Maids Daughter: Living Inside and Outside the American Dream

Author Bio

Anne R. Roschelle is professor of sociology and chair of the Womens, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at the State University of New York at New Paltz.