{"product_id":"making-room-5","title":"Making Room","description":"\u003cp\u003eMentally ill people turned out of institutions, crack-cocaine use on the  rise, more poverty, public housing a shambles: as attempts to explain  homelessness multiply so do the homeless—and we still don’t know why.  The first full-scale \u003ci\u003eeconomic\u003c\/i\u003e analysis of homelessness, \u003ci\u003eMaking Room\u003c\/i\u003e  provides answers quite unlike those offered so far by sociologists and  pundits. It is a story about markets, not about the bad habits or  pathology of individuals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne perplexing fact is that, though  homelessness in the past occurred during economic depressions, the  current wave started in the 1980s, a time of relative prosperity. As  Brendan O’Flaherty points out, this trend has been accompanied by others  just as unexpected: rising rents for poor people and continued housing  abandonment. These are among the many disconcerting facts that  O’Flaherty collected and analyzed in order to account for the new  homelessness. Focused on six cities (New York, Newark, Chicago, Toronto,  London, and Hamburg), his studies also document the differing rates of  homelessness in North America and Europe, and from one city to the next,  as well as interesting changes in the composition of homeless  populations. For the first time, too, a scholarly observer makes a  useful distinction between the homeless people we encounter on the  streets every day and those “officially” counted as homeless.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eO’Flaherty  shows that the conflicting observations begin to make sense when we see  the new homelessness as a response to changes in the housing market,  linked to a widening gap in the incomes of rich and poor. The resulting  shrinkage in the size of the middle class has meant fewer hand-me-downs  for the poor and higher rents for the low-quality housing that is  available. O’Flaherty’s tightly argued theory, along with the wealth of  new data he introduces, will put the study of homelessness on an  entirely new plane. No future student or policymaker will be able to  ignore the economic factors presented so convincingly in this  plainspoken book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harvard University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54251485954392,"sku":"9780674543430","price":39.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780674543430_f140fb00-bdf1-4071-894b-d943c9660405.jpg?v=1771046145","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/making-room-5","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}