In the Midst of Plenty: Homelessness and What To Do About It (Contemporary Social Issues)

Foreword by Nan Roman, President and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness

This book explains how to end the U.S. homelessness crisis by bringing together the best scholarship on the subject and sharing solutions that both local communities and national policy-makers can apply now.

In the Midst of Plenty shifts understanding of homelessness away from individual disability to larger contexts of poverty, income inequality, housing affordability, and social exclusion. Homelessness experts Shinn and Khadduri provide guidance on how to end homelessness for people who experience it and how to prevent so many people from reaching the point where they have no alternative to sleeping on the street or in emergency shelters. The authors show that we know how to end homelessness―if we devote the necessary resources to doing so.

In the Midst of Plenty: Homelessness and What to Do About It is an excellent resource for policy-makers, professionals in the homeless services system, and anyone else who wants to end homelessness. It also can serve as a text in undergraduate or masters courses in public policy, sociology, psychology, social work, urban studies, or housing policy.

"The knowledgeable and thoughtful authors of this book―two brilliant women who know as much as anyone in the country about the nature of homelessness and its solutions―have done a great service by taking us on a journey through the history of homelessness, how our responses have changed, and how we can end it."
―Nan Roman, President and CEO National Alliance to End Homelessness.

"Shinn and Khadduri's new book is a thorough yet concise examination of what we know about the nature and causes of homelessness, and the crucial lessons learned. This critically important work provides a roadmap to restoring basic housing and income security as viable policy options, in the face of our daunting inequality divide that otherwise threatens millions with destitution and homelessness."
―Dennis Culhane, Dana and Andrew Stone Professor of Social Policy, University of Pennsylvania

"Marybeth Shinn and Jill Khadduri have combined their significant expertise to create an essential guide about the history of modern homelessness and to offer a clear path forward to end this American tragedy. Their policy recommendations on ending homelessness are culled from the best about what we know works."
―Barbara Poppe, Executive Director US Interagency Council on Homeless, 2009-2014

MARYBETH SHINN, PHD, is a Cornelius Vanderbilt professor at Vanderbilt University. She co-led the Family Options Study of different approaches to ending family homelessness, evaluated the initial study of the Pathways Housing First experiment, and developed a model used by New York City to target its homelessness prevention services.

JILL KHADDURI, PHD, is a principal associate and senior fellow at Abt Associates. She co-leads the Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR), has played leading roles in several important studies of both homelessness and housing policy for two decades, and served as Director of the Policy Development Division of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.