Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. Its target audience was the middle- and upper-class members of society—those who were more likely to be well educated—and it exposes the poverty existing in two prosperous cities: Paris and London. The first part is an account of living in near-extreme poverty and destitution in Paris and the experience of casual labour in restaurant kitchens. The second part is a travelogue of life on the road in and around London from the tramp's perspective, with descriptions of the types of hostel accommodation available and some of the characters to be found living on the margins.
The Salvation Army (TSA) is a Protestant Christian church and an international charitable organisation headquartered in London, England. It is aligned with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement. The organisation reports a worldwide membership of over 1.7 million, consisting of soldiers, officers, and adherents who are collectively known as salvationists. Its founders sought to bring salvation to the poor, destitute, and hungry by meeting both their "physical and spiritual needs". It is present in 133 countries, running charity shops, operating shelters for the homeless, and disaster relief and humanitarian aid to developing countries.
A tent is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using guy ropes tied to stakes or tent pegs. First used as portable homes by nomads, tents are now more often used for recreational camping and as temporary shelters.
Homelessness in Canada was not a social problem until the 1980s. The Canadian government housing policies and programs in place throughout the 1970s were based on a concept of shelter as a basic need or requirement for survival and of the obligation of government and society to provide adequate housing for everyone. Public policies shifted away from rehousing in the 1980s in wealthy Western countries like Canada, which led to a de-housing of households that had previously been housed. By 1987, when the United Nations established the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless (IYSH), homelessness had become a serious social problem in Canada. The report of the major 1987 IYSH conference held in Ottawa said that housing was not a high priority for government, and this was a significant contributor to the homelessness problem. While there was a demand for adequate and affordable housing for low income Canadian families, government funding was not available. In the 1980s a "wider segment of the population" began to experience homelessness for the first time – evident through their use of emergency shelters and soup kitchens. Shelters began to experience overcrowding, and demand for services for the homeless was constantly increasing. A series of cuts were made to national housing programs by the federal government through the mid-1980s and in the 1990s. While Canada's economy was robust, the cuts continued and in some cases accelerated in the 1990s, including cuts to the 1973 national affordable housing program. The government solution for homelessness was to create more homeless shelters and to increase emergency services. In the larger metropolitan areas like Toronto the use of homeless shelters increased by 75% from 1988 to 1998. Urban centres such as Montreal, Laval, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary all experienced increasing homelessness.
The Skeleton Army was a diffuse group from Weston-super-Mare, active particularly in Southern England, that opposed and disrupted The Salvation Army's marches against alcohol in the late 19th century and best known for an attack in Bethnal Green in London. Clashes between the two groups led to the deaths of several Salvationists and injuries to many others.
Homeless shelters are a type of service that provides temporary residence for homeless individuals and families. Shelters exist to provide residents with safety and protection from exposure to the weather while simultaneously reducing the environmental impact on the community.
The penny sit-up was one of the first homeless shelters in central London created for the people of Blackfriars. It was established during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The shelter was operated by the Salvation Army to provide support to its destitute clients. What made this shelter unique was that in exchange for a penny, clients would be allowed to sit on a bench in a reasonably warm room all night. They were not allowed to lie down and sleep on the bench. A penny sit-up was the cheapest homeless shelter at that time. There were more expensive shelters available in London, such as a "four penny coffin", and a "two-penny hangover", in which clients were allowed to sleep on a bench in an upright position, with a rope to stop them falling over when as they slept.
Ballington Booth was a British-born American Christian minister who co-founded Volunteers of America, a Christian charitable organization, and became its first General (1896-1940). He was a former officer in The Salvation Army.
In England, local authorities have duties to homeless people under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996 as amended by the Homelessness Act 2002. There are five hurdles which a homeless person must overcome in order to qualify as statutory homeless. If an applicant only meets the first three of these tests Councils still have a duty to provide interim accommodation. However an applicant must satisfy all five for a Council to have to give an applicant "reasonable preference" on the social housing register. Even if a person passes these five tests councils have the ability to use the private rented sector to end their duty to a homeless person.
Stone Cold is a young-adult novel by Robert Swindells, published by Heinemann in 1993. Set in Bradford and on the streets of London, the first-person narrative switches between Link, a newly-homeless young man adjusting to his situation, and Shelter, an ex-army officer scorned after being dismissed from his job, supposedly on "medical grounds", with a sinister motive.
Homelessness, also known as houselessness or being unhoused or unsheltered, is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. It includes living on the streets, moving between temporary accommodation with family or friends, living in boarding houses with no security of tenure, and people who leave their homes because of civil conflict and are refugees within their country.
The Poverello Center, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization devoted to, advocating for, and providing a multitude of services to address and improve the health, well-being, and stability of the homeless and under-served within Missoula, Montana.
The American Rescue Workers is a Christian denomination and charity in the United States. The organization was founded in 1882 by Thomas E. Moore as a splinter group from The Salvation Army in response to financial disagreements between Moore and Salvation Army founder William Booth. In 1885 the organization officially adopted a charter as the Salvation Army of America, but in 1913 it was renamed American Rescue Workers and has functioned under this name since that time. Its quasi-military organization suggests that the charity retains similarities to the Salvation Army as with the Volunteers of America. The charity operates shelters for the homeless, workshops for the disabled, and halfway houses for the chemically dependent in addition to engaging in evangelism. American Rescue Workers publishes a quarterly periodical, The Rescue Herald.
St Mungo Community Housing Association, trading as St Mungo's, is a charity registered in England to help homeless people.
The Victoria Cool Aid Society, also known as "Cool Aid" is a charitable organization that provides shelter and other services to disadvantaged and homeless youth and adults. It was founded in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, in 1968 as an emergency hostel for transient youth.
Christopher Paul Gardner, Sr. is an American businessman and motivational speaker. During the early 1980s, Gardner struggled with homelessness while raising a toddler son. He became a stockbroker and eventually founded his own brokerage firm Gardner Rich & Co in 1987. In 2006, Gardner sold his minority stake in the firm and published a memoir. That book was made into the motion picture The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith.
The San Francisco Bay Area comprises nine northern California counties and contains five of the ten most expensive counties in the United States. Strong economic growth has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, but coupled with severe restrictions on building new housing units, it has resulted in a statewide housing shortage which has driven rents to extremely high levels. The Sacramento Bee notes that large cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles both attribute their recent increases in homeless people to the housing shortage, with the result that homelessness in California overall has increased by 15% from 2015 to 2017. In September 2019, the Council of Economic Advisers released a report in which they stated that deregulation of the housing markets would reduce homelessness in some of the most constrained markets by estimates of 54% in San Francisco, 40 percent in Los Angeles, and 38 percent in San Diego, because rents would fall by 55 percent, 41 percent, and 39 percent respectively. In San Francisco, a minimum wage worker would have to work approximately 4.7 full-time jobs to be able to spend less than 30% of their income on renting a two-bedroom apartment.
Between 5% and 10% of homeless peoplein the United States own pets. Studies of homeless pet owners in urban settings show a sense of identity and community connection between pets and their owners. This topic is part of the Animals and Society branch of study in the field of Sociology, and is also an issue with the values and responsibility of pet ownership.
Homelessness in the Netherlands is a growing social problem in the Netherlands, affecting 32,000 people in 2018. The homeless population has risen between the years of 2009 and 2019.
Our Community Place is a community center created by a former Salvation Army building located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, United States. The building was converted to a community center after Ron Copeland acquired ownership in 1999. After a lengthy renovation period, the center opened to the community in August 2008.
