When We Walk By

Forgotten Humanity, Broken Systems, and the Role We Can Each Play in Ending Homelessness in America

De: Kevin F. Adler, Donald W. Burnes, Amanda Banh, Andrijana Bilbija

Narrado por: Kevin F. Adler

How to end homelessness in America: a must-read guide to understanding housing instability, supporting our unhoused neighbors, and reclaiming our humanity.

A deeply humanizing analysis that will change the way you think about poverty and homelessness—for the socially engaged reader of Isabel Wilkerson's Caste and Matthew Desmond's Evicted.

Think about the last time that you saw or interacted with an unhoused person. What did you do? What did you say? Did you offer money or a smile, or did you avert your gaze?

When We Walk By takes an urgent look at homelessness in America, showing us what we lose—in ourselves and as a society—when we choose to walk past and ignore our neighbors in shelters, insecure housing, or on the streets. And it brilliantly shows what we stand to gain when we embrace our humanity and move toward evidence-based people-first, community-driven solutions, offering social analysis, economic and political histories, and the real stories of unhoused people.

Authors Kevin F. Adler and Donald W. Burnes, with Amanda Banh and Andrijana Bilbija, recast chronic homelessness in the U.S. as a byproduct of twin crises: our social services systems are failing, and so is our humanity. Readers will learn:

• Why our brains have been trained to overlook our unhoused neighbors
• The social, economic, and political forces that shape myths like “all homeless people are addicts” and “they’d have a house if they got a job”
• What conservative economics gets wrong about housing insecurity
• What relational poverty is, and how to shift away from “us versus them” thinking
• That for many Americans, housing insecurity is just one missed paycheck away
• Who “the homeless” really are—and why that might surprise you
• What you can do to help, starting today

A necessary, deeply humanizing read that goes beyond theory and policy analysis to offer engaged solutions with compassion and heart, When We Walk By is a must-read for anyone who cares about homelessness, housing solutions, and their own humanity.

Comprehensive examination of homelessness

I was gifted the physical book by John Graham Housing & Services, a shelter and service coordination non-profit in Addison County, VT as I completed nine years on their board. I then purchased the Audible book and have been using the physical book for review and as a resource. Despite my experience at John Graham, this book gave me a more thorough understanding of all the factors contributing to homelessness. A book cited by the authors, EVICTED, was very helpful, but not nearly as comprehensive. It shares EVICTED's quality of using personal stories of 12 people who have experienced homelessness to illustrate and educate the reader on the broken systems leading to homelessness and the array of potential positive approaches. I appreciated the authors emphasizing "person first" thinking about those who are experiencing homelessness. It ends with very specific next steps for the reader. The book has a good website that further describes the book and the various programs that Miracle Messages, the organization founded by Kevin Adler, has to offer. I am now a phone buddy with a person experiencing homelessness through Miracle Messages.

A must read!

I think this book is importantly for everyone to read, it really helps put into perspective how we can start helping our friends and family that have fallen on difficult times!

A hopeful tale for a complicated problem.

Homelessness is complicated. This book helps to outline the causes, demystify the stereotypes, and suggest steps to be part of the solution.

A compassionat overview of homelessness in America

This book was eye-opening, heart-felt, and thought provoking. I felt like I had a lot of my assumptions challenged by this book, and I think I have a better understanding of the problem of homelessness. My biggest take-away was that many people experiencing homelessness may not be visible, and that it is important to keep in mind that we are all individuals, and everyone's circumstances are different.

I think this is an important issue for people to understand, and reading this book is a great start.

We can help our unhoused neighbors!

Kevin Adler shows how each of us can help those who are not fortunate enough to have a home and family to live with. Through touching real-life stories, he demonstrates the critical need that we all have for relationships. His identification of “Relational Poverty” affects all of us, but the unhoused disproportionately. There are messages here in how we can all give more than a hand out: how we can improve the lives and quality of life for our communities, housed and unhoused. Through his grass-roots approach, anyone can make a significant improvement in a homeless person’s life.