Fix Homelessness How to rebuild human lives

Blog | Page 2

male-isolated-homeless-wearing-a-brown-hat-sitting-on-the-pe-319520382-stockpack-adobe_stock
Male isolated homeless wearing a brown hat sitting on the pedestrian.
Image Credit: Олександр Цимбалюк - Adobe Stock

“Homelessness in America”: Stephen Eide’s Eye on Reality

My third and last book to recommend this month is Stephen Eide's Homelessness in America: The History and Tragedy of an Intractable Social Problem (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). Read More ›
typical-buildings-in-soho-in-new-york-stockpack-adobe-stock-239267836-stockpack-adobe_stock
Typical buildings in Soho in New York

Inequity and Iniquity in Manhattan Housing

In 2015, the May 15 cover of New York Magazine ran this headline: "New York Real Estate Is the New Swiss Bank Account: Foreigners are flooding the market to stash, hide, and sometimes launder their money." That intrigued me, because I had done some research into Manhattan condos selling for $20 million and up. Read More ›
young-depressed-homeless-girl-or-woman-standing-alone-under-389256990-stockpack-adobe_stock
Young depressed homeless girl or woman standing alone under the bridge on the street on the cold weather feeling anxious abandoned and freezing selective focus

The Homeless Mascots of “the Anointed”

Sowell wrote that homeless individuals often became "mascots of the anointed." Sleeping-on-the-streets miseries "enable the anointed to score points against a benighted society." Sowell wrote about requests that homeless advocates receive: "We need a witness for a hearing. Can you get us a homeless family: mother, father — father out of work in the past four months from an industrial plant — white?" Read More ›
woman-reading-book-at-evening-at-home-close-up-stockpack-ado-272072948-stockpack-adobe_stock
Woman reading book at evening at home close up

Elliott’s “Invisible Child”: A Model of Narrative Non-Fiction

Sixty-six books have won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction since that award began in 1962. Two of the books — sociologist Matthew Desmond's Evicted (the 2017 winner) and journalist Andrea Elliott's Invisible Child (2022 Pulitzer) — portray people in and out of homelessness. I criticized Desmond's work last month: He communicated an unmodulated despair. Last week, though, I recommended E. Fuller Torrey's American Psychosis, and this week I want to recommend Invisible Child's nuanced hopefulness. Read More ›
Screenshot 2024-10-03 141425

New Fentanyl Documentary Produced by Senior Fellow Robert Marbut Coming January 2025

The following is a press release for the new documentary Fentanyl: Death Incorporated. Discovery Institute’s Fix Homelessness initiative is proud to partner with filmmaker Stephen Wollwerth in the production of this documentary that explores the fentanyl crisis in depth. The documentary is produced by Senior Fellow Dr. Robert G. Marbut, Jr., the former Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness under both the Trump and Biden administrations. Senior Fellow and journalist Jonathan Choe also contributed and is featured in the documentary. San Antonio, Texas (September 24, 2024) — American citizens are the world’s top consumers of illicit synthetic Fentanyl that is often laced with other illicit drugs, including horse tranquilizers. The size of two grains of salt is Read More ›

low-angle-view-of-lonely-patient-in-full-length-in-modern-ho-280475023-stockpack-adobe_stock
Low angle view of lonely patient in full length in modern hospital waiting lobby room walking impatiently as he waits for good or bad news from his doctor

How Politicians Strafed the Cuckoo’s Nest

After criticizing some scholarly articles and books, I have three books to recommend. First, here’s a tribute to 86-year-old psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey, author of American Psychosis: How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System (Oxford University Press, 2013). I first met Torrey in 1989 and heard about what was going wrong. Thirty-five years later, it’s even clearer that the federal panaceas have not panned out. Torrey shows how local and state charities and governments cared for mentally ill individuals, sometimes poorly but often adequately, until 1940, by which time state mental hospitals housed 423,445 individuals. During World War II half of the hospitals’ professional staff members were in the armed forces. Torrey: “The hospitals were grossly overcrowded Read More ›