Street Lives: An Oral History of Homeless Americans

By Steven Vander Staay and Steven Vanderstaay

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865712379
• ISBN13: 9780865712379
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: New Society Pub
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

America Through the Eye of a Needle

STREET LIVES"Street Lives" is an invaluable book- it provides windows into the problem everyone wants to ignore: homelessness. Dozens of people tell their story, either homeless, or triumphantly off the street, in their own sometimes halting, but always powerful words. Surprising information springs their experiences, backed up by data before each chapter. Common myths are shattered, such as homelessness resulting from the emptying of mental institutions in the 70s. (According to Mr. V., most of these displaced patients found other places of care.) Instead, high rates of mental illness among homeless stem from homelessness itself, and its stark and surreal existence. Another myth is that homeless "just don't want to work." But many do work, but must take dangerous and exploitative jobs because of their hygiene and appearance. Tales of evil work conditions sear the reader, including labor pools that hire teams of homeless and pay less than a dollar an hour for 16 hour days, working over molten metal that splashe. Horrifying are the accounts of labor camps that bus homeless workers to camps in other states, where they are forced to pay premiums bck to the employer, sometimes running up debts. These camps are protecte by burly, violent guards. One man tells us of his escape from one such place. Other disturbing facts: one quarter of homeless are children, many mentally ill are veterans, and many homeless were normal families who got bad breaks.Our common perception is of a big divide between homeless vs. us, and that homeless are fundamentally different people, that on some level they deserve it. This book's great service is crossing that divide. What comes through in many stories is how normal they were when starting out. Many families had jobs, cars, homes and kids in school. Than an accident, a lost job and a missed mortgage payment forced them into a shelter. A teen has problems at home, spends time with the wrong crowd, then finds himself caught in a cycle he cannot stop. Etc.But the book doesn not judge its subjects, whether they hark from so-called normal backgrounds or dysfunctional ones.After the initial fall, they find that their grueling lifestyle perpetuates itself and makes change difficult. We see people walking for hours to get a meal, then hours more back to a shelter. Falling prey to violence, drugs (often for consolation from a brutal life) and mental illness. Lack of housing and transport make it impossible to get jobs, which makes it impossible to get housing and transport, and on and on. Relief comes in the last chapter, "Solutions." Halfway houses run and supported by homeless are appearing all over the country and serve as the "break" many need to get back their lives back. This book is bleak, brutal and honest, not an NPR report or glossy magazine article, no music, no sentimentality. Instead, it invites us into this world, if we dare, and performs an act of spiritual grace: it brings us closer to those suffering among us.