Poverty

'Evicted' probes the multiple dimensions of the housing crisis

mgregus — Thu, 27 Oct 2016 14:48:59 +0000

October 27, 2016

Once bursting with well-paying jobs in the brewing and manufacturing industries, Milwaukee, Wisconsin is now the second-poorest city in America. Over 170,000 people, including 41 per cent of the city's African-American and 32 per cent of the city's Hispanic residents, are living in poverty.

Between 2009 and 2011, one in eight Milwaukee residents were forced from their homes by eviction or foreclosure. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City tells their stories. Written by Matthew Desmond, now a Harvard sociologist, the book follows eight families, Black and white, who struggle to keep a roof over their heads.

In "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" sociologist Matthew Desmond offers a critical examination of urban poverty and homelessness told through the stories of eight families.

Downtown Eastside dreams

alex — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:04:57 +0000

February 11, 2010

A Thousand Dreams tells grim stories of missing women, sardine and cat food diets, epidemic illness and the crippled support systems that struggle to manage the situation that is life, and survival, in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

A Thousand Dreams tells the grim stories of missing women, sardine and cat food diets, illness and the crippled support systems that struggle to manage life in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Portraits of poverty

alex — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:28:25 +0000

January 9, 2009

Street Stories: 100 Years of Homelessness in Vancouver by Michael Barnholden and Nancy Newman with photographs by Lindsay Mearns (Anvil Press, 2007; $20.00)

Through photographs and stories Street Stories and Hope in Shadows articulate the larger context contributing to poverty and homelessness in Vancouver.