Description
Book SynopsisThe first full-scale economic analysis of homelessness, Making Room provides answers quite unlike those offered so far. Focused on six cities in America and Europe, Brendan O'Flaherty discusses the new homelessness as a response to changes in the housing market which is linked to a widening gap in the incomes of the rich and the poor.
Trade ReviewA longtime political operative in the city of Newark who happens to be something of a technical ace in a university economics department as well, O'Flaherty adopted a well-understood model of housing markets and put it to work testing various hypotheses...Thanks to him, the diagnosis [of the causes of homelessness] is increasingly clear. -- David Warsh * Boston Globe *
O'Flaherty has written an important book to explain the rise of the 'new homelessness'...An original and wide-ranging account, written with grace and subtlety. It should be read carefully by any social scientist interested in poverty, housing, or urban policy...A
tour de force worthy of study by anyone with an interest in applied microeconomic theory. -- John M. Quigley * Journal of Economic Literature *
[O'Flaherty's] questions are key to any basic analysis of the problem: What is homelessness? Why is it bad? What happened? Why did it happen? What can we do, and what should we do about it?...O'Flaherty's strength is documenting [the] daytime symbols of public poverty. He is mainly interested in the extent to which...single adults--whom he labels, for want of a better word, the
colloquial homeless--are affected by housing market and shelter policies. Are they really homeless? Are they inherently lazy? His findings are surprising. -- Elaine S. Abelson * Journal of Urban History *
The most original and wide-ranging book ever written on the homeless. [O'Flaherty] intrepidly challenges conventional theories of the rise of homelessness and offers fresh ones...Brash, iconoclastic, and down-to-earth,
Making Room belongs in the library of anyone interested in extreme poverty. -- Robert C. Ellickson, Yale Law School
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction What Is Homelessness? Why Is It Bad? Homeless Histories Daytime Streetpeople How to Think about Housing Markets Income Distribution Interest Rates and Operating Costs Cross-Section Studies Government and Housing Income Maintenance Mental Health Substance Abuse Criminal Justice What We Should Do Appendix: Homeless Studies Notes References Index
