Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders

Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders PDF Author: Teresa Gowan
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 0816648697
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
Gowan shows some of the diverse ways that men on the street in San Francisco struggle for survival, autonomy, and self-respect. Living for weeks at a time among homeless men--working side-by-side with them as they collected cans, bottles, and scrap metal; helping them set up camp; watching and listening as they panhandled and hawked newspapers; and accompanying them into soup kitchens, jails, welfare offices, and shelters--Gowan immersed herself in their routines, their personal stories, and their perspectives on life on the streets. She observes a wide range of survival techniques, from the illicit to the industrious, from drug dealing to dumpster diving. She also discovered that prevailing discussions about homelessness and its causes--homelessness as pathology, homelessness as moral failure, and homelessness as systemic failure--powerfully affect how homeless people see themselves and their ability to change their situation.

Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders

Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders PDF Author: Teresa Gowan
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 0816648697
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 367

Get Book Here

Book Description
Gowan shows some of the diverse ways that men on the street in San Francisco struggle for survival, autonomy, and self-respect. Living for weeks at a time among homeless men--working side-by-side with them as they collected cans, bottles, and scrap metal; helping them set up camp; watching and listening as they panhandled and hawked newspapers; and accompanying them into soup kitchens, jails, welfare offices, and shelters--Gowan immersed herself in their routines, their personal stories, and their perspectives on life on the streets. She observes a wide range of survival techniques, from the illicit to the industrious, from drug dealing to dumpster diving. She also discovered that prevailing discussions about homelessness and its causes--homelessness as pathology, homelessness as moral failure, and homelessness as systemic failure--powerfully affect how homeless people see themselves and their ability to change their situation.

Paramedics On and Off the Streets

Paramedics On and Off the Streets PDF Author: Michael K. Corman
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442629894
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
In Paramedics On and Off the Streets, Michael K. Corman embarks on an institutional ethnography of the complex, mundane, intricate, and exhilarating work of paramedics in Calgary, Alberta. Corman’s comprehensive research includes more than 200 hours of participant observation ride-alongs with paramedics over a period of eleven months, more than one hundred first hand interviews with paramedics, and thirty-six interviews with other emergency medical personnel including administrators, call-takers and dispatchers, nurses, and doctors. At the heart of this ethnography are questions about the role of paramedics in urban environments, the role of information and communication technologies in contemporary health care governance, and the organization and accountability of pre-hospital medical services. Paramedics On and Off the Streets is the first institutional ethnography to explore the role and increasing importance of paramedics in our healthcare system. It takes readers on a journey into the everyday lives of EMS personnel and provides an in-depth sociological analysis of the work of pre-hospital health care professionals in the twenty-first century.

Surviving On The Streets

Surviving On The Streets PDF Author: Ace Backwards
Publisher: Loompanics Unlimited
ISBN: 9781559502016
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Ace Backwards gives us our first real foray into the daily life of street people. Intended to be written as a how-to for anyone comtemplating or more likely thrust by circumstances into street life, it is an uncensored and candid look at an entirely different world that exists co-dependently with the one with which most of us are familiar. Ace himself admits that no book can teach you to survive the countless turbulent pitfalls awaiting you on the street - each street person's situation is unique. However, this book offers specific tips on street survival that worked - and some that didn't, which might be just as valuable for those who could learn from Ace's mistakes. For those of us who will never live on the streets, this book gives a brutally honest peek into an alien world from the eyes of a native.

Coming Out to the Streets

Coming Out to the Streets PDF Author: Brandon Andrew Robinson
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520299272
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth are disproportionately represented in the U.S. youth homelessness population. In Coming Out to the Streets, Brandon Andrew Robinson examines their lives. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in central Texas, Coming Out to the Streets looks into the LGBTQ youth's lives before they experience homelessness—within their families, schools, and other institutions—and later when they navigate the streets, deal with police, and access shelters and other services. Through this documentation, Brandon Andrew Robinson shows how poverty and racial inequality shape the ways that the LGBTQ youth negotiate their gender and sexuality before and while they are experiencing homelessness. To address LGBTQ youth homelessness, Robinson contends that solutions must move beyond blaming families for rejecting their child. In highlighting the voices of the LGBTQ youth, Robinson calls for queer and trans liberation through systemic change.

Leaving the Streets

Leaving the Streets PDF Author: Jeff Karabanow
Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Youth between sixteen and twenty-four are considered the fastest growing segment of the homeless population in Canada. While much has been said about why young people enter street life and the culture they encounter there, little has been said about how they exit the street. Through the voices of street youth and frontline workers, Leaving the Streets offers invaluable insights into young people's attempts to exit street life, examining the motivations and challenges, as well as the supports and barriers that aid and hurt youth through this process. Based on the findings from qualitative research done in six cities across Canada, this book demonstrates that exiting street life is a non-linear process involving several layers of motivation and action and action, woven together in a complex web that facilitates the breaking of old social bonds and the building of new ones. From shelters and support programs to mental health and drug use, this book examines the structural and Personal barriers to exiting and details the services that are available, and those that should be available, to help street youth find housing, income and the strength needed to start a new life. Book jacket.

Buskers

Buskers PDF Author: Heth Weinstein
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 159376412X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Frustrated by the indifference of the music industry and the stacks of homemade CDs gathering dust in their closets, brothers Heth and Jed Weinstein made the radical decision to bring their music directly to the masses. They began playing on street corners, in subway stations, and wherever else they could connect with a live audience. To their surprise, far from this being the terminal stop of a dead-end career, busking turned out to be just the beginning as crowds of stressed-out commuters gathered around, cheering them on, subscribing to their mailing lists, and actually buying some of those stockpiled CDs—40,000 and counting. In Buskers, Heth and Jed recount their turbulent, drug- and crime-filled adolescence in the nowhere-land of Livingston, New Jersey, their valiant attempts to achieve rock ’n’ roll success through traditional channels, and their unexpected path to circumventing the outmoded music industry. They divulge fascinating details about the technical and legal aspects of street performance, New York busking culture, and the lives of their fellow troubadours. A world of possibilities opens up when the brothers take it to the streets, proving the value of their music to themselves and anyone who’ll listen. Read their story, and your commute will never be the same.

The Unforgotten War

The Unforgotten War PDF Author: Thomas Park Clement
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description


The Man in the Dog Park

The Man in the Dog Park PDF Author: Cathy A. Small
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501748793
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
The Man in the Dog Park offers the reader a rare window into homeless life. Spurred by a personal relationship with a homeless man who became her co-author, Cathy A. Small takes a compelling look at what it means and what it takes to be homeless. Interviews and encounters with dozens of homeless people lead us into a world that most have never seen. We travel as an intimate observer into the places that many homeless frequent, including a community shelter, a day labor agency, a panhandling corner, a pawn shop, and a HUD housing office. Through these personal stories, we witness the obstacles that homeless people face, and the ingenuity it takes to negotiate life without a home. The Man in the Dog Park points to the ways that our own cultural assumptions and blind spots are complicit in US homelessness and contribute to the degree of suffering that homeless people face. At the same time, Small, Kordosky and Moore show us how our own sense of connection and compassion can bring us into touch with the actions that will lessen homelessness and bring greater humanity to the experience of those who remain homeless. The raw emotion of The Man in the Dog Park will forever change your appreciation for, and understanding of, the homeless life so many deal with outside of the limelight of contemporary society.

When a Heart Turns Rock Solid

When a Heart Turns Rock Solid PDF Author: Timothy Black
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307378349
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Based on an unprecedented eighteen-year study, the center of this riveting book are three engaging streetwise brothers who provide powerful testimony to the exigencies of life lived on the social and economic margins. With profound lessons regarding the intersection of social forces and individual choices, Black succeeds in putting a human face on some of the most important public policy issues of our time.

Under the Overpass

Under the Overpass PDF Author: Mike Yankoski
Publisher: Multnomah
ISBN: 030756343X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
An updated and expanded edition of the gritty, challenging, and utterly captivating portait of the homeless crisis. Ever Wonder What it Would Be Like to Live Homeless? Mike Yankoski did more than just wonder. By his own choice, Mike's life went from upper-middle class plush to scum-of-the-earth repulsive overnight. With only a backpack, a sleeping bag and a guitar, Mike and his traveling companion, Sam, set out to experience life on the streets in six different cities—from Washington D.C. to San Diego— and they put themselves to the test. For more than five months the pair experienced firsthand the extreme pains of hunger, the constant uncertainty and danger of living on the streets, exhaustion, depression, and social rejection—and all of this by their own choice. They wanted to find out if their faith was real, if they could actually be the Christians they said they were apart from the comforts they’d always known…to discover first hand what it means to be homeless in America. What you encounter in these pages will radically alter how you see your world—and may even change your life.