A Book Review by Monika Kriebel
The Man in the Dog Park - Coming Up Close to Homelessness
by Cathy A. Small Ph.D., with Jason Kordosky and Ross Moore, published 2020 by Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London.
This book is available from the Pima County Library, independent bookstores, and Amazon.
About the authors: Cathy A. Small is Professor Emerita of Cultural Anthropology at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ. Jason Kordosky is a researcher for the Culinary Union who works and lives in Las Vegas, NV. Ross Moore is a disabled Vietnam Veteran and resident of northern Arizona who survived three years of recurrent homelessness and now lives in a HUD-subsidized apartment.
The Man in the Dog Park is a total of 152 pages organized into nine chapters, followed by 23 pages of notes. Professor Small and her co-authors explain how so many people slide into homelessness, the coping mechanisms they develop to survive, and what helpful resources are available and where that help falls short. The book explains how Cathy Small met Ross Moore, who was living in a tent in the woods near Flagstaff, and how long it took for Moore to trust Small, thus allowing her to gain insight into the houseless culture. The reader learns why people are forced to live in the woods, in vehicles, under bridges, in parks and washes, and to sleep in shelters or couch-surf with friends or family. Small, by volunteering in shelters and conducting interviews with shelter occupants and street dwellers, uncovered the hardships they faced, and how they adapted to cope with myriad difficult situations.
The reader will learn how the homeless find places to spend nights, some using pan-handling income to pay for an occasional night in a cheap hotel during the coldest nights. Many pan-handle to get cash, and/or use payday or title loans, to pay for car registration, gas, and repairs; cars are used for both transportation and sleeping. Some earn money working day jobs where they are commonly exploited by “Day Labor Companies.” Cash is also needed to pay for: a US Postal Service or UPS mail box; or rent on a storage unit to secure household items, a few valuables, and essential documents after an eviction; or to pay interest on payday or title loans or on a pawned item.
Cash is also needed to pay for communication needs “because homeless people, and particularly those who are unsheltered, are hard to find.” It is vital to be locatable for many reasons: so that the Veterans Administration can notify one of approval for treatment, so a probation officer can verify your whereabouts, so that one can hear about a housing opportunity. Some qualify for a free government phone with limited minutes, commonly called an Obama phone. Most unhoused people carry a cell phone, and so, of course, must find places to recharge.
Many homeless residents receive a small Veterans pension or government subsidy, but neither is enough to afford permanent housing, food, and health care. Navigating federal and state bureaucracies (chapter 7) is another aspect that “regular citizens” would experience very differently. Prof. Small points out that the path to a subsidized apartment is a very long, complicated, and often humiliating experience; many are unable to secure the reliable income required to maintain an apartment over the long term. Common reasons for sliding back into homelessness repeatedly include low wages, loss of jobs, and loss of government subsidies, sometimes due to changes in government leaders and policies, often circumstances well beyond the individual’s control. Americans who live on extremely low incomes are unable to save money for an unexpected financial emergency, such as a cut in work hours or a medical problem. Conflicts with family, partners, landlords, or employers also contribute to homelessness.
The final chapter of the book summarizes how much Prof. Small has learned about the homeless culture since she met her co-author Ross Moore: “… to say homeless people are invisible and misunderstood is misleading—not because it is untrue, but because it misses the whole truth. … Who are the homeless invisible to or misunderstood by? That actor is me, (she writes) the reader, the American public.” She continues to explain how the homeless are stuck in a Catch-22 loop within the system. Small does not offer solutions to homelessness, but instead asks what we could do ourselves to be more understanding and compassionate. She recommends that urban planners and not-for-profit organizations who work on providing housing should work within their own neighborhoods to not hide homeless residents from view (by putting them in ghettos); Small offers an example from Bhutan, a country that focuses on “Gross National Happiness” in contrast to the US focus on “Gross National Product.” Chapter 9 also relates some statistics about an industry that generates large profits from lending money to the poorest Americans, problematic social policies and the alternatives, and a few final scenes of difficult situations that homeless people experience.
The Man in the Dog Park provides an important and interesting view into a culture few Americans understand and is an excellent resource for volunteers and donors working to end homelessness. I highly recommend this book.
A Youtube video about the book is here.