- Explores the housing process through the direct experiences and perspectives of social service workers, including the barriers they confront and the creative workarounds and methods they employ to provide services to their clients.
- Features the perspectives and accounts of direct-care providers working within the larger homeless services system in its exploration of street-level bureaucracy among homeless service providers.
- Portrayal of fitting stories and the challenges imposed by SPDAT offer timely and vivid detail that capture the obstacles and workarounds navigated by case workers.
- Coverage of the experiences of the unhoused being re-housed fills a gap by focusing on the perspective of case workers and direct-care providers, which should directly interest both students and social service providers.
Curtis Smith is faculty in the Sociology Department at Bentley University in Waltham, MA. His research focuses on issues of poverty, social inequality, and social justice with a specific concentration on homelessness and social policy research. His interest in the topic of homelessness emerges from his past work as a case worker for various homeless populations in three different regions of the United States.
Title: Homelessness and Housing Advocacy: The Role of Red-Tape Warriors
Author: Smith, Curtis
ISBN: 9780367507039
Binding:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publication Date: 2022-04-01
Number of Pages: 174
Weight: 0.2501 kg
Drawing on his in-depth, ethnographic fieldwork and his own professional experiences as an advocate for the down-but-not-out, Curtis Smith illuminates the perspective and street-level grind of social service workers to negotiate the maze of bureaucratic red-tape and polices to house their homeless clients. In doing so, Smith's Homelessness and Housing Advocacy: The Role of Red-Tape Warriors is a most welcome and compelling addition to the social science research and literature on homelessness, particularly on the dogged and resourceful efforts of those street-level bureaucrats advocating on behalf of the homeless. - David A. Snow, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of California, Irvine
In Homelessness and Housing Advocacy, Curtis Smith covers a wide variety of topics centered on social service provision to those who are homeless. Readers learn about the characteristics of housing policy, how specific social services for homeless people are organized, and the diverse characteristics and experiences of people who request housing services. Discussions of such topics offer context for the primary interest in the work of front-line service workers in these agencies where Smith goes inside the messy world of social science provision and demonstrates how workers are creative practical actors. Rich ethnographic detail coupled with Smith's personal experience combine to artfully demonstrate how front-line social service workers develop practical understandings and skills to deliver services within environments posing multiple challenges. - Donileen R. Loseke, Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida
