Showing titles in Poverty & Homelessness

Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. Its target audience was the middle and upper class members of society—those who were more likely to be well educated—and exposes the poverty existing in two prosperous cities: Paris and London. The first part is an account of living in near-destitution in Paris and the experience of casual labour in restaurant kitchens.

Poverty is big business in America. The federal government spends about $900 billion a year on programs that directly or disproportionately impact poor Americans, including antipoverty programs. States and local governments spend tens of billions more. Ironically, these enormous sums fuel the "corporate poverty complex," a vast web of hidden industries and entrenched private-sector interests that profit from the bureaucracies regulating the lives of the poor. 

The Hobo: The Sociology of the Homeless Man is a book written by Nels Anderson, which provides a comprehensive sociological study of the homeless population in America during the early 20th century. The book explores the lives and experiences of "hobos"—a term used to describe homeless men who traveled from place to place in search of work—and sheds light on the social and economic factors that led to their homelessness.

Haben wir ohne reiche Eltern keine Chance mehr? In kaum einem anderen westlichen Land ist Vermögen so ungleich verteilt wie in Deutschland. Die Schere geht immer weiter auf – aufgrund steigender Mieten und Lebensmittelpreise, weil heutzutage jeder Paketzusteller prozentual mehr von seinem Lohn abgibt als ein Milliardär, aber auch weil Steuern auf Vermögen runtergeschraubt werden und die Reichen unaufhörlich reicher werden. Diese Ungerechtigkeit ist gesellschaftliches Dynamit. Reichtum durch Arbeit? Fast unmöglich. Jeder ist seines Glückes Schmied? Nur im Märchen.

A holiday classic by Charles Dickens. Originally published in 1843, Dickens worried about the disparity between the wealthy and the impoverished, and it was his attempt to bring this disparity into the light of day, to appeal to the die-hard capitalists to take care of the downtrodden masses. Since this inequity continues, this story is still popular, and will probably continue to be so for the foreseeable future. 

From the author of the New York Times Notable Book of the Year Drive By comes a unique and riveting exploration of one of America’s largest and fastest-growing industries—the business of poverty. Broke, USA is a Fast Food Nation for the “poverty industry” that will also appeal to readers...

Beneath the Nelson Mandela Boulevard flyover on Cape Town's foreshore lives a community of stowaways, young Tanzanian men from the slums of Dar es Salaam. When journalist Sean Christie meets Adam Bashili, he comes to know the extraordinary world of the Beachboys, a multi-port, fourth-generation subculture that lives to stow away and stows away to survive.

Paul Polak, whose organization International Development Enterprises (IDE) has directly helped over 17 million people get out of poverty permanently, exposes the top 3 things we are doing wrong in our efforts to end the root causes of poverty. He then, through the story of a Nepali farmer, goes on to detail solutions for what actually works when it comes to ending poverty.

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty did more than offer aid to needy Americans; in some cities, it also sparked both racial conflict and cooperation. Race and the War on Poverty examines the African American and Mexican American community organizations in Los Angeles that emerged to implement War on Poverty programs. It explores how organizers applied democratic vision and political savvy to community action, and how the ongoing African American, Chicano, and feminist movements in turn shaped the contours of the War on Poverty’s goals, programs, and cultural identity.

Poverty is bad for everyone. Being at the sharp end of disadvantage is shameful, reduces brainpower, and hampers positive action. It increases crime, burdens healthcare systems and raises taxpayers' bills. With millions around the world struggling to make ends meet and increased socioeconomic...

The housing crisis plaguing major urban centres has sent countless people into the streets. In spring 2022, some of them found their way to the yard beside the Anglican church in Toronto’s Kensington Market, where Maggie Helwig is the priest. They pitched tents, formed an encampment, and settled in. Known as an outspoken social justice activist, Helwig has spent the last three years getting to know the residents and fighting tooth and nail to allow them to stay, battling various authorities that want to clear the yard and keep the results of the housing crisis out of sight and out of mind.

From the opening conversation on a railroad trestle, Beggars of Life rattles along like the Fast Flyer Virginia that Tully boards midway through the story. This is the book that defined Tully’s hard-boiled style and set the pattern for the 12 books that followed over the next two decades. Startling in its originality and intensity, Beggars of Life is a breakneck journey made while clinging to the lowest rungs of the social ladder.

How can we make sense of a world where we have both too many billionaires and too many foodbanks? We're supposed to go to university, forge a career, get wealthier, buy a house - but why is that so hard for most of us to achieve? Split makes sense of our world by looking at class society - delving into the deep-rooted economic inequalities that shape our lives. From the gig economy, rising debt, and the housing crisis that affects the majority of people, to the world of tax havens and unfair inheritance that affect the few...now is the time to fight back against the one percent.

In the underground tunnels below Grand Central Terminal, Lee Stringer—homeless and drug-addicted for eleven years—found a pencil to run through his crack pipe. One day he used it to write. Soon writing became a habit that won out over drugs, and before long Stringer had created one of the...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of the acclaimed, best-selling Half the Sky now issue a plea--deeply personal and told through the lives of real Americans--to address the crisis in working-class America, while focusing on solutions to mend a half century of governmental failure. With stark...

Kwan Kew Lai met her first Punjabi woman doctor while lying in a hospital bed with a severe kidney infection at the age of fourteen. Watching the woman walk away down the hall, Kwan Kew was convinced she could, and would, carve out her own destiny. In The Girl Who Taught Herself to Fly, the author weaves in her family’s story of joy, sorrow, loss, love, and endless struggles with poverty and hunger. This poignant memoir, with universal and timeless themes, will leave you in awe.

A deeply personal nine-year account of the lives of the “anchor-outs”—an unhoused community living off the California coast on abandoned boats—that explores the struggles and resilience of those surviving on the fringes of society. In the wake of the financial crisis, the number of...

In a time when global food production is at an all-time high, why does hunger, poverty, and malnutrition still devastate entire communities? Plenty is not just another book about world hunger—it’s a bold, eye-opening investigation into the broken systems, global corruption, and economic inequality that keep billions trapped in cycles of food insecurity, starvation, and injustice.

Incluso en los países más desarrollados del mundo podemos encontrar regiones que se han quedado atrás: desde Yorkshire del Sur, un lugar que fue fundamental durante la Revolución Industrial y que ahora es el condado más empobrecido de Inglaterra, hasta Barranquilla, antaño la puerta de salida de Colombia al Caribe y que hoy se enfrenta a serias dificultades. Y todavía resulta más alarmante observar cómo han aumentado las desigualdades entre estas áreas y el resto del mundo a lo largo del último siglo. ¿Por qué nos hemos olvidado de estos lugares? ¿Y qué podemos hacer al respecto?

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to How the Other Half Lives and learn about the conditions of abject poverty that the residents of the slums of New York at the end of the 19th century had to endure.