A Right to Housing
ISBN: 9781592134335
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / Temple University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Social justice; Equality; Housing; Right to housing; Housing policy;

In the 1949 Housing Act, Congress declared "a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family" our national housing goal. Today, little more than half a century later, upwards of 100 million people in the United States live in housing that is physically inadequate, unsafe, overcrowded, or unaffordable.

The contributors to A Right to Housing consider the key issues related to America's housing crisis, including income inequality and insecurity, segregation and discrimination, the rights of the elderly, as well as legislative and judicial responses to homelessness. The book offers a detailed examination of how access to adequate housing is directly related to economic security.

With essays by leading activists and scholars, this book presents a powerful and compelling analysis of the persistent inability of the U.S. to meet many of its citizens' housing needs, and a comprehensive proposal for progressive change.


Rachel G. Bratt is Professor and Chair of the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. She is the author of Rebuilding a Low-Income Housing Policy and a co-editor of Critical Perspectives on Housing , both published by Temple.Michael E. Stone is Professor of Community Planning and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His publications include Shelter Poverty: New Ideas on Housing Affordability (Temple).Chester Hartman is Director of Research at the Poverty & Race Research Action Council in Washington, DC and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at George Washington University. His most recent books are City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco and Between Eminence & Notoriety: Four Decades of Radical Urban Planning.Contributors: Emily Paradise Achtenberg, Boston, Consultant; David B. Bryson, National Housing Law Project; John Emmeus Davis, Burlington, Vermont, Consultant; Nancy A. Denton, SUNY Albany; Peter Dreier, Occidental College; Maria Foscarinis, National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty; Dennis Keating, Cleveland State University; Peter Marcuse, Columbia University; Jon Pynoos and Christy M. Nishita, University of Southern California; Rob Rosenthal, Wesleyan University; Susan Saegert and Helene Clark, City University of New York; Michael Swack, Southern New Hampshire University; Chris Tilly, University of Massachusetts, Lowell; Robert Wiener, California Coalition for Rural Housing Project; Larry Lamar Yates, Social Justice Connections; and the editors.
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