Beyond Shelters

Newspapers, television and films cast homeless shelters as places of desperation, sadness and sickness. However, over the last 25 years, homeless shelters have changed dramatically. Shelters have become more professional and sophisticated in addressing homelessness in their communities. They now do much more than provide a bed and a meal for the night — they offer different methods of intervention, different types of services and different forms of connection to the communities they serve. This book offers essays by experienced shelter managers who address the future of the homeless shelter in Canada. This diverse collection also includes a chapter by Dr. Sam Tsemberis, the father of the successful Housing First Model. There are contributions by leaders in the homelessness field from across Canada, who have been at the forefront of developing unique services for women, youth, Indigenous people, and families. The days of shelters serving to merely warehouse homeless people out of sight and mind are being replaced by specialized approaches that are reducing homelessness in Canada. The contributors have years of experience understanding the causes of and solutions to homelessness and the role that shelters can play in achieving their ultimate goal — the elimination of all forms of homelessness in Canada.

Providing shelter after a disaster is recognised as one of the most complex areas of humanitarian relief and recovery. Some aid agencies have stopped providing shelter altogether after bad experiences, while those that do quickly become engaged in challenges that go far beyond the provision of structures alone. Yet with the number and severity of disasters set to increase, due to climate change and rapid urban growth, the need for approaches that work has never been greater. This book explores the issues in three parts. The first, Practice, looks at lessons from past efforts. Part two, Process, proposes practical and effective people-centred approaches. Part three considers currently neglected issues such as disability, human rights and urban-oriented approaches. Through practical case studies and academic research, Beyond Shelter after Disaster critiques past methods and explores future options for improving practice in one of the most complex areas of post disaster relief and recovery. This book was originally published as a special issue in Environmental Hazards: Human and Policy Dimensions.

Homeless families speak out. Aurora Zepeda, University of California, San Diego.

Twenty-five reports from the field by leaders of architecture and engineering firms, non-profits, research centers, and international agencies, on disaster prevention and sustainable recovery efforts in urban and rural locales around the world.

★ “An outstanding, sophisticated introduction to a complex topic, this book encourages readers to prioritize kindness towards and dignity for people experiencing homelessness. Recommended as a first purchase.”—School Library Journal, starred review There are 150 million people experiencing homelessness worldwide, and that number is increasing every year. Homelessness is not a choice, yet it exists in almost every community. But why are people homeless? Who are they? What can you do? In Shelter: Homelessness in Our Community, readers will get answers to these complex questions. They’ll learn about the root causes of homelessness and its effects, and what people and organizations around the world are doing to address the problem. It shares the personal stories of people who live on the street and the adults and kids who work with them. As a former homeless-shelter worker, author Lois Peterson encourages young people to approach the issue with knowledge and compassion. She dispels some of the myths about homelessness and makes the case for why everyone deserves a safe, permanent place to call home.

[This book] is the second book in a collection profiling homeless families. Unlike most books about homelessness relaying stories of discouragement and despair, it highlights the achievements of those who broke the cycle of family homelessness.

“By investigating the . . . connection between the . . . shelter and the community . . . vastly expands . . . notions of intersectionality, democracy, and inclusivity.” —Leslie Irvine, American Journal of Sociology Monster is an adult pit bull, muscular and grey, who is impounded in a large animal shelter in Los Angeles. Like many other dogs at the shelter, Monster is associated with marginalized humans and assumed to embody certain behaviors because of his breed. And like approximately one million shelter animals each year, Monster will be killed. The Lives and Deaths of Shelter Animals takes us inside one of the country's highest-intake animal shelters. Katja M. Guenther witnesses the dramatic variance in the narratives assigned different animals, including Monster, which dictate their chances for survival. She argues that these inequalities are powerfully linked to human ideas about race, class, gender, ability, and species. Guenther deftly explores internal hierarchies, breed discrimination, and importantly, instances of resistance and agency. “Powerful and timely. . . . Katja M. Guenther unlocks the shelter door and eloquently explains this complicated and contested multispecies space, as she reflects on issues such as witnessing, vulnerability, advocacy, grievability, compassion, and animal resistance.” —Carol J. Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat “In this compassionate, incisive ethnography . . . Katja M. Guenther illuminates the entangled injustices that shape human relationships with other animals.” —Lori Gruen, author of Entangled Empathy “With the perfect balance of intimacy and analytical depth, the author reminds us of how messy things can get when caring and killing become one, or when the value of the animal companion's life is measured by the race, gender, and zip code of the owner.” —Bénédicte Boisseron, author of Afro-Dog