The following list collects items I have found useful over the years.  It is neither comprehensive nor well-maintained.  It is, however, a good place to start. — JS

Menu: News Clips, Magazine Articles, etc. — Other Websites & Resources

News Clips, Magazine Articles, etc: (see more evanescent notices at our Course Blog)
[some of these links may have expired]

• New York Times video/photos comparing an Oakland, California, homeless encampment to one in Mexico City (December 2019)
• New York Times series on inequality: “The Great Divide” (January 2013-June 2014)
• The Guardian series on homelessness 
  • especially: “A Journey through a Land of Extreme Poverty: Welcome to America” (December 2017)
• Stories of & by Homeless People:
  •  “Face and Voice of Homelessness” website
• Homeless News:
  • “Cities Cannot Bar Homeless from Sleeping in Outdoors” (NYT Dec 2019)
  • “Homelessness in New York Public Schools” (NYT, Oct 2018)
  • “Bussed Out: How America Moves its Homeless” (Guardian, Dec 2017)
  • “California’s Homeless Population Drives National Increase” (NYT, Dec 2017)
  • Op Ed: “How to Fight Homelessness” (give tenants legal help to prevent unfair evictions” (NYT, Oct 2015)
  • Madison, WI to ban homeless sleeping at city hall (NYT, Sept 2015)
  • Salt Lake City a Model for Homeless Solutions (SFGate.Com, Sept 2015)
  • Homeless families endure rats, roaches, and squalor (NYT, Aug 2015)
    • New York relies on housing plan it deplores (NYT Aug 2015)
  • Los Angeles has its most accurate count yet of its homeless population (LAT, June 2015)
  • How Chicago’s housing crisis ignited a new form of activism (NYT, June 2013)
  • Wall Street investors push up cost of housing (NYT, June 2013)
  • Columbia, South Carolina evicts the homeless (NYT, Aug 2013)
  • Nevada Hospital Dumps Homeless Mental Patients in San Francisco (NYT, Sept 2013)
  • Medicaid Expansion May Aid Homeless (NYT, Nov 2013)
  • As Homeless Line Up for Food, Los Angeles Weighs Restrictions (NYT, Nov 2013)
  • Homelessness Rises in Affluent Morristown (Morristown Daily Record, Dec 2013)
  • Where are New Jersey’s Homeless? An Interactive Map (NJ Spotlight, Dec 2013)
    See if you can figure out what’s wrong with this picture.
• Ideas & Solutions
  • Microsoft’s Leap into Housing (NYT, Jan 2019)
  • Albuquerque offers homeless people $9/hr jobs (NYT, Dec 2015)
  • Virginia becomes first state to end veteran homelessness (Policy Mic, Nov 2015)
  • Tiny House Village to Shelter the Homeless in Texas (Yes! Magazine, Dec 2013 — Austin has an idea
  • Health insurer pays for housing, saves money in the long run (Texas Tribute, Sept 2015)

Poverty and Unemployment:

• • The Rent Crisis is About to Get a Lot Worse (Yahoo Finance, Sept 2015)
  • Jessica Bruder: “The End of Retirement” (Harpers, Sept 2015)
  • Unemployed Hit the Road to Find Jobs (WSJ, June 2009)
  • Poverty Rate Rose in 2008 (NYT, Sept 2009)
  • Low-wage workers are often cheated (NYT, Sept 2009)
  • Poverty rate holds steady, despite recovery (NYT, Sept 2013)
  • On Raising the Minimum Wage (NYT, Dec 2013)
  • Fifty Years Later, War on Poverty is a Mixed Bag (NYT, Jan 2014)
  • Mapping Poverty — a New York Times web app showing county-by-county poverty levels for the U.S. (NYT, Jan 2014)
  • “Can You Live on the Minimum Wage?” by Jeremy Ashkenas
    More than 4.8 million workers now earn the lowest legal pay. This calculator, for a single childless worker, shows the hard choices that have to be made living on the smallest paychecks.

• Hunger:
  • Cuts to Food Stamps Endanger Poor (NYT Sept 2013)
  • More Hunger for the Poorest Americans (NYT, Dec 2013)
• Global Recession:
  • Living with Less (NYT, Nov ’09 to Jan ’10) A  series of articles on the effects of the global recession.
  • Charts on the late-2013 economy from the Economic Policy Institute.  They show the lingering effects of government inaction on the economy: stagnation, increased inequality, and harm to the middle and lower classes.
• Homeless Kids:
  • Surge in Homeless Strains Schools (NYT, Sept 2009)
  • New York Times series on runaways. (NYT, Oct 2009)  by Ian Urbina: “Running in the Shadows”, “Sex Buys Survival”, etc
  • Ben Faccini on Street Children (Aeon Magazine, May 2013)
  • “Invisible Child: Dasani’s Homeless Life” (series in the New York Times, Fall 2013)
• Public Policy:
  • “Making Room for the Skid Row Community” by Karan Benton.  Pages 4 & 6 in the August, 2015 Catholic Agitator (the monthly newsletter of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker Community).
    • An excellent resource for news and commentary on life on the Los Angeles Skid Row.
  • “Being Homeless in America” — transcript of a WAMU radio show on homelessness, hosted by Kojo Nnamdi: featuring Martha Burt, Barbara Poppe, Stephen Peck, and Sheila Prillerman.
  • “Mismeasure of Poverty Hides Effectiveness of Anti-Poverty Programs” (NYT, Sept 2013)
  • Christian Science Monitor praises Obama Administration’s new effort to build on the Bush Administration’s success at reducing long-term homelessness.  (CSM, June 2010)
  • “Inequality is a Choice” by Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel Prize economist & former chief economist for the World Bank)  (NYT, Oct 2013)
  • “Princeton study shows benefits of affordable housing for communities” (NJ.com, Dec 2013)
  • Kerry Drake’s Op-Ed advocating that Wyoming copy Utah’s successful program for giving apartments to long-term homeless people — with no strings attached. (WyoFile, Dec, 2013)
  • Inequality.is: a web app showing how inequality works and what public policies keep it in place.  Explore the tabs to see aspects of the issue, then click the button at the bottom of the page (middle) to listen to a cartoon-illustrated talk by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.
  • “Good Poor and Bad Poor” — an op-ed piece about recent public policy decisions to ‘discipline’ poor people.  By Tim Egan (NYT, Dec 2013).
  • “Progress in the War on Poverty” — summary of the positive effects of the U.S. “War on Poverty” over the last 50 years.  By Nicolas Kristoff (NYT, Jan 2013).
• Program Evaluations:
  • Martha Burt: “Evaluation of LA’s Hope: Ending Chronic Homelessness through Employment & Housing” (Urban Institute, March 2008)

(More news items are posted on our Course Blog.)

go to top

Other Websites & Resources (some with downloadable reports):

•  ”Face and Voice of Homelessness” website
  • A website filled with respectful interviews with homeless people
• Melville Charitable Trust
  • “The Melville Charitable Trust began its work on homelessness with two simple thoughts: The first was that the persistence of homelessness in the wealthiest democracy in the world was, quite simply, scandalous. The second was that it was a solvable problem.” – Stephen Melville, Chair of the Melville Charitable Trust Board of Directors
• Applied Survey Research
  • An organization that runs homeless counts in several California counties.  It uses a very creative method to ensure that it catches everyone, including homeless who are otherwise invisible,
  • Here is a link to their September 2013 report.
• Youth Hope
  • Redlands’ own agency that works with homeless use.  A source of information, newsletters, and ways to help local homeless kids.

go to top