cover image The Visible Poor: Homelessness in the United States

The Visible Poor: Homelessness in the United States

Joel Blau. Oxford University Press, USA, $25 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-19-505743-0

This illuminating work makes sense of the grim changes overtaking American society, incisively tracing the evolution of U.S. homelessness over the last 20 years. Blau, assistant professor at the School of Social Welfare at the State University of New York, argues that because our economic system produced the homeless, it is poorly equipped to solve their problems, the amelioration of which would require policies that conflict with the profit motive, the American ethos of self-sufficiency and the contemporary tendency to ``commodify'' basic needs. New York City's response to the homeless comes in for close scrutiny here. Though it has been better than other municipalities, its approach is still palliative and insufficient, he finds. Blau concludes that the visibility of the homeless, which threatens our economic assumptions, may ultimately ignite social change. (Feb.)