"A decade ago, two dog owners met in a dog park, one an anthropologist, the other a homeless veteran with a felony record. The collaboration that came out of their emerging friendship led to this book and came to include a union researcher who had worked in a homeless shelter and surveyed day laborers. Together, the authors offer an ethnographic look at what it takes to be homeless, told through interviews and encounters with dozens of homeless people....

"When he graduated from Harvard Medical School, Jim O'Connell was asked by the medical school Dean to spend one year setting up a program to care for the homeless population in Boston. It became Jim O'Connell's life calling, to help people known as "rough sleepers." For the past three decades, Dr. O'Connell has run the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program, which he helped to create. Affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital, the program...

Discusses the problem of homelessness in our society, how and why people become homeless, what happens to homeless people, and possible remedies for this situation.

The child of an alcoholic father and an eccentric artist mother discusses her family's nomadic upbringing, during which she and her siblings fended for themselves while their parents outmaneuvered bill collectors and the authorities.