Any good articles about homelessness and "authority" in the US?

Post date: 2024-04-23 05:19:09

Can you recommend any good articles or academic works on the relationship between homeless and legal authority?

This recent NYTimes piece on migrant children selling candy on the subways of NYC was, beyond being heartbreaking, a total indictment of every agency that maybe has some modicum of responsibility for intervening to help these kids. No one is taking responsibility, everyone is siloed/no one is working together, no one sees it as their job to coordinate the various actors necessary to address the problem, and even if someone did see that as their job, no one short of maybe the Governor has the power to actually force anybody to work together anyway.

As the Supreme Court considers whether or not it should allow homelessness to be further criminalized, I'm wondering if there are any articles or academic pieces that you're aware of that talk about these issues (silo-ing, lack of authority/responsibility, etc.) in the context of homelessness policy in the U.S. Obviously a lot of homelessness could simply be solved by building more housing, but I'm more interested in the small but very visible subset of the unhoused population for which there tend to be a lot more moving parts. When the emergency rooms and social workers and supportive housing administrators and community volunteers and police aren't working in lockstep, it can be hard to accomplish much, and I'm wondering if there's been any good writing on the need for overarching coordination and control (and responsibility/accountability) of these disparate service providers. Thanks!

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