S3E47: Homelessness in America - How Did It Get So Bad?

History Behind News Program

"More Americans Are Ending Up Homeless - at a Record Rate." See WSJ.

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From San Francisco and LA to Texas and Florida, to New York, and then back to Montana... this is the history behind America's homelessness crisis.

In this episode, I ask my guest, Prof. Maria Foscarinis, the following questions:

1. Prior to recent times, did America suffer from a crisis of mass homelessness? (Hint: Hoovervilles).
2. How does our current homelessness crisis compare to the past?
3. How did we get to this current moment?
4. How did Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton change our attitudes and laws toward homelessness?
5. Is homelessness a Republican or a Democratic problem?
6. As a nation, should we deal with homelessness at the national or local level?
7. Were there studies that showed a larger proportion of homeless people caught COVID in comparison to the general population?
8. If you wanted our audience to remember just one point about “homelessness”, what would it be?

Prof. Foscarinis is a lecturer at Columbia Law School, where she serves on the Public Interest/Public Service Council. She is the founder and former executive director of the National Homelessness Law Center.

Before founding the National Homelessness Law Center, she established and directed the Washington, D.C. office of the National Coalition for the Homeless. To learn more about her, visit her academic homepage.

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I hope you enjoy this episode.

Adel, host & producer

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3. Image attribution: featured photo of homeless man by Ben Hershey on Unsplash.