This book is a 272-page inventory of Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Almost without exception, the contributed articles treat the homeless as some vague, faceless group, far distant from the authors’ time and place. There is not even the degree of passion an astronomer brings to the study of Jupiter’s rings. You get the feeling that you are reading about amoebae. Worse, many of the authors are condescending.

Yet this book is important because it is one of the first books on the homeless the academic community has done for the general readership. As such it is designed to guide politicians and planners in the support of rational policies. With the decisions every large American community is now facing concerning the fate of the homeless, the need for reliable information and realistic guides for planning is crucial. It is lamentable that this volume does not provide either.

The book consists of 15 articles which are divided into two sections, seven on “understanding homelessness” and eight concerning “policy and program options.” The articles in the first section are intended to be objective descriptions. They are so vague and “arm-chairish,” however, that they tend to mislead rather than inform. In some pieces there is not enough information given even to mislead. These sentences are typical:

A home has several functions.

Home is a place where one can rest and sleep, wash and change clothing.

A home of one’s own is a place where one can keep one’s furniture and other possessions.

Homelessness is life without one’s own home.

The articles in the policy and program section provide even less guidance than the “descriptive” pieces. Their authors are either urban planners, housing authorities, architects, or politicians. Hence there is no discussion of deinstitutionalization of the mentally 01, alcoholism, or family dissolution—all major issues in homelessness.

The policy section is much too general and theoretical to serve as a guide for decision makers. Nevertheless, the book appears to have an ideological perspective. The homeless, according to this assumption, are in their wretched state primarily because of the dearth of “affordable housing,” and the lack of said housing is due to current administration policies.

Two quotations Olustrate this particular view. “As long as the distribution of shelter security remains tied to income and social class, the poor will bear the burden of going homeless,” writes one contributor. This cannot be of much help to communities earnestly seeking solutions to the homeless problem but which are dedicated to a democratic and capitalistic approach. Can you imagine “shelter security” (apartments? houses?) not being tied to income in America? Otherwise, our economic system collapses.

The other quotation is from Mario Cuomo, governor of New York: “If we are to keep our economy strong and our nation powerful . . . we must begin to see that regarding America as a community is not some grandiose ideal . . . In New York we have tried to do this, not only in tending to the needs of the homeless, but in taking on all challenges that government faces—from education to AIDS.” This is rhetoric, and aside from being optimistic it offers little help with the massive problems New York and the rest of the country face. New York City has the largest population of street people in the nation. It pays unbelievably large sums to keep the “welfare hotels” full, has half of all the AIDS patients in the world, and a troubled education system. The authors should have looked at Cuomo’s track record before they entered him in the race. Homelessness is much too serious a problem to leave to the trivializations of political pundits.

[The Homeless in Contemporary Society, edited by Richard D. Bingham, Roy E. Green, and Sammis B. White; Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications]