Showing titles in Poverty & Homelessness

The book that has been waiting to be written – how Ireland’s housing policy has locked an entire generation out of the housing market and what we should do about it. Millennials are the first generation in Ireland to be worse off than their parents. Trapped in a game of rental roulette...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An inspiring personal story of redemption, second chances, and the transformative power within us all, from the founder and CEO of the nonprofit charity: water. At 28 years old, Scott Harrison had it all. A top nightclub promoter in New York City, his life was an...

Nick and Pascal live and sleep outside in central London. They are an unusual duo: Nick is an avid reader of history and philosophy able to converse on any topic; Pascal is quiet, spending much of his time lying still, communicating silently with birds and animals. They have lived alongside each other in London's streets for nearly two decades, yet do not identify as homeless. For the past five years they have taken shelter under the hornbeam trees in Regent's Park. Emma Tarlo first meets Nick and Pascal when out walking. Gradually they develop a friendship.

In the span of a generation, oil-rich Venezuela spiraled into a dire state of economic collapse. Reporter Paula Ramón experienced the crisis firsthand as her middle-class family saw their quality of life deteriorate. Public services no longer functioned. Money lost its value. Her mother couldn’t afford to buy food, which was increasingly scarce. The once-prosperous country fell into ruin. Like many others, Ramón’s family struggled to survive each day in their beloved city, Maracaibo—until, one by one, they each made the unbearable choice to leave the home they love.

From poverty and policing, homelessness and overrun prisons to Grenfell and hostile environments, Britain has long been failing those who need our help the most. There is arguably one unifying theme that links all these afflictions: proximity. Proximity is how close we are to the action and how that affects how we assess, relate to and address whatever that action happens to be. Almost every job requires a level of experience and training with the notable exception of the most powerful people in the country—our political class.

A powerful and explosive memoir of poverty and politics, and the realities of life in Westminster. Tara Jane O’Reilly grew up on a council estate a mere bus ride away from Parliament, but a world away from the hallowed halls of power. Dropping out of school at sixteen after a childhood marred...

Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption.

Class does make a difference in the lives and futures of American children. Drawing on in-depth observations of black and white middle-class, working-class, and poor families, Unequal Childhoods explores this fact, offering a picture of childhood today. Here are the frenetic families managing their children's hectic schedules of "leisure" activities; and here are families with plenty of time but little economic security.

Melissa Lucashenko is one of Australia's most admired and awarded novelists. She is renowned for writing about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead. This timely collection of essays and journalism - published together for the first time - spans two turbulent decades. With her trademark wit and wisdom, Lucashenko reflects on being caught in a siege, on the marginalised lives of prisoners and the urban poor, on Blak identity, Australian literature and on meeting her writing idol.

Anti-Social is the diary of a council worker whose job is to keep his community happy, or at least away from each other’s throats. That’s hard enough at the best of times but when government cuts mean that hospitals, social services and police are all at breaking point, the possibility of complete chaos is never far away. This is an urgent, timely but, most of all, hysterically funny true story of a life spent working with the people society wants to forget and the problems that nobody else can resolve.

"Darkly humorous" is an understatement when it comes to this tale of addiction, homelessness, incarceration, and redemption. Jared Klickstein, the child of two heroin addicts who eventually became addicted himself, takes listeners on a raw and personal journey from his unsettling and secretive childhood in the suburbs to the slums of Skid Row. Through tales of violence, relapse, and deep inner struggle, Klickstein provides a harrowing account of his personal encounter with near-death.

The Blue Sweater is the inspiring story of a woman who left a career in international banking to spend her life on a quest to understand global poverty. It all started back home in Virginia, with the blue sweater, a gift that quickly became her prized possession - until the day she outgrew it and gave it away to Goodwill. Eleven years later in Africa, she spotted a young boy wearing that very sweater, with her name still on the tag inside.

How can poor and weak societies escape poverty traps? Political economists have traditionally offered three answers: "stimulate growth first," "build good institutions first," or "some fortunate nations inherited good institutions that led to growth." Yuen Yuen Ang rejects all three schools of thought and their underlying assumptions: linear causation, a mechanistic worldview, and historical determinism. Instead, she launches a new paradigm grounded in complex adaptive systems, which embraces the reality of interdependence and humanity's capacity to innovate.

"There are children in Holbeck without crayons. Living in a city with an opera company. An opera company paid for with money from all of us. Until everyone has crayons, no one gets opera. That’s what I believe." A deeply moving memoir of how a group of artists fed their local community during the COVID pandemic. When crisis hits and audiences stay home, what’s the most useful thing a theater company can do? The answer was to become a food bank and one-stop help shop for those in need. In 15 months, Slung Low would go on to deliver over 15,000 food parcels.

Growing up gifted and working-class in the foothills of the Ozarks, Monica and Darci became fast friends. The girls bonded over a shared love of learning as they navigated the challenges of their declining town and tumultuous family lives - broken marriages, shuttered stores and factories. They pored over the giant map in their classroom, tracing their fingers over the world that awaited them, vowing to escape. In the end, Monica left Clinton for university and fulfilled her dreams. Darci, along with many in their circle of friends, did not.

Riding the rails, Ted Conover tasted the life of a tramp with companions like Pistol Pete, BB, and Sheba Sheila Sheils. From them he learned survival skills - how to "read" a freight train, scavenge for food and clothing, avoid the railroad "bulls." He was initiated into the customs of their unique, shadowy society - men and women bound together by a mutual bond of failure, camaraderie, and distrust.

A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year 2022 'I can’t tell you how refreshing it is in these polarised times to read a book on politics that doesn’t have an axe to grind . . . an essential read.' The Sunday Times 'Subtle, sophisticated . . . compellingly told . . . This is a gentle and...

Hailed as "the guide to capitalism", the New York Times best seller Wealth and Poverty is one of the most influential economics books of all time and has sold more than one million copies since its first release. In this modern classic, Gilder affirms the moral superiority of free-market capitalism and explains why supply-side economics is more effective at decreasing poverty than government-regulated markets. Now, in a completely updated edition of Wealth and Poverty, Gilder compares America’s current economic challenges with its past economic problems.

Part social reportage, part socialist polemic, The Road to Wigan Pier sets out a hellish vision of a broken Britain before delivering a meditation on how we can create a more egalitarian society. Having travelled to the industrial north of England on assignment from his editor, Orwell's confronting, stark descriptions of the social injustice, cramped slum housing, squalor, hunger and growing unemployment he encounters are written with unblinking honesty, anger and humanity.

While free markets have brought positive change, traditional capitalism cannot solve problems of inequality and poverty because of its view of people as solely profit-driven. In fact, humans have other drives and passions, including spiritual, social, and altruistic.