Social Science - Poverty & Homelessness

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year The story of a kind of poverty in America so deep that we, as a country, don't even think exists--from a leading national poverty expert who "defies convention." (The New York Times) Jessica Compton's family...

In this Tenth Anniversary Edition of The Life You Can Save, Peter Singer brings his landmark book up to date. In addition to restating his compelling arguments about how we should respond to extreme poverty, he examines the progress we are making and recounts...

From the Haitian-style "shotgun" houses of the 19th century to the lavish high-rises of the 21st century, a walk through the streets of America's neighborhoods that reveals the rich history--and future--of urban housing The Philadelphia row house. The New York tenement. The Boston triple-decker....

This memoir that "will take your breath away" chronicles a harrowing journey through homelessness and poverty in New York City, followed by a turbulent experience in foster care (Jeanette Walls, New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle). This powerful memoir exposes the...

Abolish Rent takes aim at one of the foremost engines of inequality and injustice. Rent drives millions into debt, despair, and onto the streets. The social cost of rent is too damn high. Written for anyone fed up with the permanent housing crisis, complicit...

From the celebrated writer J. Malcolm Garcia, a narrative nonfiction account of a forgotten Alabama neighborhood through intimate, tender, and gritty profiles of its people as they navigate immense loss and an unassailable determination to overcome their circumstances. "J. Malcolm Garcia [channels] the empathetic...

Now a Washington Post bestseller. Respected conservative journalist and commentator Timothy P. Carney continues the conversation begun with Hillbilly Elegy and the classic Bowling Alone in this hard-hitting analysis that identifies the true factor behind the decline of the American dream: it is not...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - From the Pulitzer Prize-winner and bestselling author, "a grand memoir.... Bragg tells about the South with such power and bone-naked love ... he will make you cry" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution).This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin...

Inside the lives of homeless teens--moving stories of pain and hope from Covenant HouseAlmost Home tells the stories of six remarkable young people from across the United States and Canada as they confront life alone on the streets. Each eventually finds his or her...

Andre Norman's early life put him on a path to prison. Raised in poverty and surrounded by dysfunction, Andre gravitated to his neighborhood gang. His choices there led to time in juvenile detention, and eventually a maximum-security prison, with sentences totaling over 100 years....

How did a predictable "family values" evangelical politics become the engine of an anti-democratic movement with unprecedented access to American power? Keri Ladner traces that transformation through the rise of dominionism-a radical strain of evangelical Christianity that frames political authority as a biblical mandate...

A groundbreaking legal advocate argues that only by recognizing housing as a fundamental human right can we hope to solve America's homelessness crisis. In And Housing for All, founder of the National Homelessness Law Center Maria Foscarinis reveals the human impact of the housing...

John O'Brien was raised in Philadelphia by an Appalachian father who fled the mountains to escape crippling poverty and family tragedy. Years later, with a wife and two kids of his own, the son moved back into those mountains in an attempt to understand...

WINNER: The 2019 Lillian Smith Book Award, 2018 McGannon Center Book Prize, and shortlisted for the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice Astra Taylor, author of The People's Platform: "The single most important book about technology you will read this year."Dorothy...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER - ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE - ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY - A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY...

The Bitter Reality. The Sweet Solutions. The Lane Forward. Housing dominates headlines, yet few truly understand how affordable housing works--or why it's failing. Bittersweet Lane is the first book to demystify America's housing crisis from both a professional and deeply personal perspective. Spanning from...

"A vivid, compelling and heartrending memoir." --Booklist "Evocative . . . Intimate yet universally resonant . . . a powerful memoir that takes us down the darkest corridors of Scientology." --Kirkus Reviews "Non-stop indoctrination . . . reckless indifference . . . A nightmare...

CLAYTON is a riveting novel that brings to life the failed hopes and dreams of one man.....a heartbreaking story of homelessness and how one gets there. The book brings out the stark realities of addiction, PTSD, and living in our country as an illegal...

Featured In the Wall Street Journal As Seen on Jesse Watters As Heard on the Patrick Bet-David Podcast Crooked Smile details one man's journey that left him homeless on Skid Row, and what it took to escape a decade of addiction. "Darkly humorous" is...

In his first apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te ("I have loved you"), Pope Leo XIV focuses on poverty and love for the poor. The Holy Father signed this first magisterial document of his pontificate on October 4, 2025, the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi.The...