Homeless Lives

Like many girls her age in India, thirteen-year-old Koly faces her arranged marriage with hope and courage. But Koly's story takes a terrible turn when in the wake of the ceremony, she discovers she's been horribly misled—her life has been sold for a dowry. Can she forge her own future, even in the face of time-worn tradition? Perfect for schools and classrooms, this universally acclaimed, bestselling, and award-winning novel by master of historical fiction Gloria Whelan is a gripping tale of hope that will transport listeners of all ages.

FOR THE TAKING follows Don Vodka’s brave journey from a cruel childhood to a life of adventure and self-discovery, blending raw struggle with the triumphs that shaped her into what she is today. It is the haunting story of a girl forced to grow up too soon in a world that never protected her. After her mother’s death when she was seven, Donnalee’s father turned cruel and violent — until his disappearance left her in the hands of “Uncle Digger,” a man whose fists were only the beginning of what she feared. Nearing her twelfth birthday, she began to sense the danger shifting into ...

These are notes taken while staying in a homeless shelter starting in July 2024. From suicidal to survival it's all about getting a bed instead of sleeping under a bridge. These notes document the process of getting a bed and then having a reserved bed. Learn about the process, the staff and the residents. A personal journey into what led up to getting into a homeless shelter, attempted suicide, and what life is like living and surviving in a homeless shelter.

Rachel Anne Ridge was at the end of her rope. The economy had crashed, taking her formerly thriving business along with it. She had been a successful artist, doing work she loved, but now she felt like a failure. How would her family pay their bills? What would the future hold? If only God would somehow let them know that everything was going to be all right... and then Flash the donkey showed up.

God does not give us more than He knows we can handle. Highs and lows are part of life. It is important to remember that lows are temporary. You will eventually rise. But! What if you struggle longer than you expected? This can be extremely discouraging. How do you cope? Keeping a hopeful heart won't be easy, but it's crucial.

Thousands of people live in the subway, railroad, and sewage tunnels that form the bowels of New York City. This audiobook is about them, the so-called mole people, living alone and in communities, in subway tunnels, and below subway platforms. It is about how and why people move underground, who they are, and what they have to say about their lives and the "topside" world they've left behind.

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR A “vivid and devastating” (The New York Times) portrait of an indomitable girl—from acclaimed journalist Andrea Elliott “From its first indelible pages to its rich and startling...

In June of 1965, after a year of intimidation and persecution at the University of Georgia in Athens, seventeen-year-old Perry Brass hitchhiked from his native Savannah to San Francisco, beginning an adventures he called, “like Mark Twain with drag queens.” Often dead broke, he met an underground of homeless gay kids like himself, boy hustlers and the men who frequented them, as well as tormented married men, female impersonators, and ruthless cops. A Real Life is a keyhole into being an openly gay teen, on his own, in the turbulent period before Stonewall, and Gay Liberation. Brass ...

Tom Grady is an unhoused Army veteran sleeping in his car—counting breaths, counting threats, counting the nights a city refuses to count him. When he pushes for a simple, humane solution—safe parking with rules, quiet, and dignity—City Hall answers with studies, committees, and polished sympathy. Then the rectangle breaks. Ruth, an older veteran who came to the lot for peace, is killed by violence that was always circling the edges of “policy.” Now the city can’t look away. Tom doesn’t become a hero—he becomes evidence. His grief turns into testimony: hard, precise, ...

They had no audience. No headlines. No platform. But they had a story that crossed the veil. NDEs Among the Homeless shares extraordinary near-death experiences from people living on the margins—individuals whose powerful spiritual journeys are rarely told, yet deeply moving. These survivors describe moments when their hearts stopped, their breaths stilled, and they found themselves stepping into worlds of light, compassion, memory, and truth. From alleyways to abandoned buildings, shelters to street corners, each account reveals unexpected wisdom: encounters with radiant beings, reunions...

He lived—so now he helps others live. Every Delay Means a Life follows Tom Grady, a homeless veteran fighting a system that moves slower than the human body can endure. This Ending 3 edition delivers the most hard-earned version of hope: not a miracle, not a rescue—repair. Tom doesn’t get “saved.” He gets stabilized, housed, and rebuilt through veteran networks and community support, then turns outward to stand with others still trapped in the gaps. It’s a gritty, humane novel about survival, dignity, and the truth no city wants to admit: every delay carries a body inside it. ...

New York City, 1970s. Take a walk on the wild side. In Street People: Invisible New York Made Visible, spellbinding stories and iconic images combine to create a rare glimpse into a world hiding in plain sight. 1970s New York was a mecca for artists, writers, and musicians drawn to its vibrant energy and creative possibilities. It was also a place of grinding poverty and urban decay, where crime and violence were everyday realities and hope danced with despair. Prowl the nighttime streets with Margie — the drag queen who inspired more than fifty works by Andy Warhol — and Romeo, part-...

When a homeless man rescues Glorilyn from a violent assault, he's not the man he seems. What powerful secret keeps him on the streets? When Glorilyn Neilson's nineteen-year-old brother, Tannon, goes missing without a trace, she's frantic. Prayer and volunteering at the local homeless shelter in El Camino must fill the time until her sibling returns. But her sapphire eyes and auburn hair inadvertently cause a stir among the male population at the center. Her life changes one evening when she's attacked by a burly vagrant intent on rape in the alley behind the building. Jeremiah Goodman loves...

The 828 biker gang has taken root in Asheville, North Carolina, and the city is drowning in a surge of drug-related deaths. Retired Colonel Bart Washburn, newly settled in “Beer City”, is pulled into the chaos when he stumbles upon a dead body during his morning walk. As Asheville’s corrupt mayor aligns herself with influential developers and politicians, she tightens her grip on the city. Meanwhile, billionaire Hal Graham sets his sights on expanding his family’s empire, forging alliances with dark forces intent on unraveling the American way of life. Washburn joins forces with a ...

Alex Carissa is thrilled when her identical twin sister, Sam, and her husband move into the neighborhood. For Sam, years of infertility, followed by an unthinkable tragedy, have left her despairing of ever having a child. Money is tight, and IVF is expensive. Sam’s only hope may be to ask her sister to be a surrogate. Alex will do anything for Sam, but when the sisters embark upon an unorthodox route to surrogacy, jealousy, guilt, and legal complications soon follow.

Sweet Potato Jones has been on the move her entire life—toting her siblings from one abandoned train car to the next, following her father’s broken dreams, and trying not to hope for more. But when they land a spot at The Home, a Christian shelter that offers families just twenty weeks before the clock runs out, Sweet Potato dares to believe this might be different. Still, she’s not expecting Soul Food... Not the kind you eat—though collards and hoecakes come with the deal—but the kind that changes everything. The kind served up in a purpled-up diner, run by a faith-filled woman ...

"Barry tugs at the heartstrings as you feel totally immersed in his world as he negotiates his own, very particular journey." Barry Braithwaite has fallen just about as low as a man can go. He is living in a skip in a grim northern town when a chance encounter with Alfred, a self-confessed 'over-read, middle-aged, under-achiever' changes the course of his life. Barry and Alfred's journey takes them through an amusing labyrinth of officialdom into a new territory of self-discovery for both men. A lighthearted, satirical but penetrative tale about life on the edge of society and the choices ...

Every Delay Means a Life is a razor-edged, deeply human novel about what happens when survival collides with bureaucracy—one night at a time. Tom Grady is living in his car, running on exhaustion and stubborn dignity, when he helps build a “safe parking” lot designed to be boring, quiet, and functional: lights off inside, light on the perimeter, bathrooms open, no-questions intake—sleep without spectacle. But the city keeps stalling, hiding behind liability language and “process,” even as real people keep paying the price. Then the lot is attacked—and the cost becomes ...

Do you want to know what its like to be homeless in America? "Homeless: A Day In The Life" is a harrowing tale of what one homeless veteran goes through in a single day. It's an engrossing account of his begging, searching through the garbage for his food and anything he can sell, confronting the police, trying to get into a shelter, and staying away from the "bum bashing" violent gangs. He drinks secondhand coffee, smokes cigarette butts, begs with a cardboard sign, and sleeps out in the open. You've seen him a thousand times, on street corners, sidewalks and stoplights, asking you to help...

One chance . . . one glance . . . and their lives will never be the same. With a heart for lifting men out of homelessness, Carl Anderson is a dedicated counselor-in-residence in a transitional home. When recent setbacks threaten the program’s continuation, he proposes an innovative plan to increase success by pairing at-risk residents with shelter dogs. One glance from Carl’s stunning new supervisor, and he’s convinced his proposal doesn’t stand a chance. Rae Caldwell admires Carl's passion, but for her, every canine encounter is a heart-rending reminder of her late daughter’s ...