Abstract

The dispossessed

This article presents information on two books, "The New Poverty: Homeless Families in America," by Ralph da Costa Nunez and "In the Open: Diary of a Homeless Alcoholic," by Timothy E. Donohue. Ralph Nunez briefly but efficiently describes the lost history of the U.S. poverty. Indeed, the causes of modern mass homelessness are a matter of little debate, and reside in what many academics and advocates call the "affordability gap," the distance between the affordability of secure, stable housing and the income levels of poor Americans. A different kind of book entirely, Timothy Donohue's "In the Open" is a moving diary of alcoholism. It also describes, with a matter-of-fact simplicity that is riveting, Donohue's homelessness for most of his four years wandering in Arizona, Minnesota, California, Hawaii and Nevada.