Description
Book SynopsisIf health policy truly seeks to improve population health and reduce health disparities, addressing homelessness must be a priority Homelessness is a public health problem. Nearly a decade after the great recession of 2008, homelessness rates are once again rising across the United States, with the number of persons experiencing homelessness surpassing the number of individuals suffering from opioid use disorders annually. Homelessness presents serious adverse consequences for physical and mental health, and ultimately worsens health disparities for already at-risk low-income and minority populations. While some state-level policies have been implemented to address homelessness, these services are often not designed to target chronic homelessness and subsequently fail in policy implementation by engendering barriers to local homeless policy solutions. In the face of this crisis, Ungoverned and Out of Sight seeks to understand the political processes influencing adoption of best-practic
Trade ReviewUngoverned and Out of Sight provides a fresh perspective on the complex governing arrangements for American housing policy and the implications for public health. A must read for public policy and public health scholars. * Patricia Strach, University of Albany *
Charley Willison has written an urgently important book that explores and explains critical facets of the politics of homelessness policy. Marshalling an impressive range of qualitative and quantitative data, Ungoverned and Out of Sight highlights homelessness as a vital public health problem while advancing our understanding of how local policy processes shape homelessness governance. With remarkable clarity, devastating depth, and compelling breadth, Willison offers knowledge that is crucial for addressing homelessness as a structural political problem. This book is a must read for political scientists, public health scholars, policy makers, and everyone who is part of the decentralized complex of actors who play a role in the systems that structure homelessness. * Jamila Michener, Cornell Center for Health Equity *
Homelessness is viscerally experienced at the local level. Local governments play a crucial role in shaping factors that affect homelessness, like housing development and police behavior, yet direct responses to homelessness exist largely outside of local government. Why would this be? Using novel quantitative data along with in-depth qualitative evidence from three divergent cases, Charley Willison identifies four influential actors in homelessness response and explains how this history of devolution, combined with a lack of coordination among powerful players, contributed to homelessness policy responses coming up short. * Jessica Trounstine, University of California, Merced *
Table of ContentsTable of Contents Acknowledgements Chapter 1: America's Homelessness Crisis Chapter 2: Homeless Politics in the United States: Theories of the Ungoverned and Unwanted Chapter 3: Seeking Deeper Explanations: Case Selection and Qualitative Analysis Chapter 4: Measuring Municipal Participation in Homeless Governance: A National Perspective Chapter 5: The Integrated State: San Francisco and Challenges for Policy Implementation Chapter 6: The Fragmented State: Atlanta and the Challenges of Coordination Chapter 7: The Delegated State: Shreveport and Challenges of Authority and Capacity Chapter 8: A Way Forward Appendix A: Dataset Overview and Codebook Appendix B: fsQCA Deduction Procedure Appendix C: Interviewee Demographics by Cases Appendix D: Qualitative Interview Consent Protocol Appendix E: Qualitative Interview Questionnaire Appendix F: Codebook for Qualitative Interviews Appendix G: Process Tracing Analytic Approach and for Archival Documents Notes References Index
