Year: 2025

In a recent article in the Detroit Free Press, a five-year study by Shawnita Sealy-Jefferson, Associate Professor of social epidemiology at the Ohio State University College of Public Health, indicates a connection between evictions and health outcomes.
Sealy-Jefferson surveyed 1,428 Black women from three counties. Some of her findings include:

• More than half of the participants said they had been evicted; of those, nearly half were reported to be illegal evictions, that is they happened outside the legal court process.
• A quarter of the participants said they had been evicted during childhood.
• A higher risk of poor self-rated heath among participants was associated with 12%-17% of those experiencing childhood, court ordered or illegal eviction.
• For those experiencing childhood eviction and illegal eviction, there was a 34%-37% higher risk of worse relative self-rated health.

In an interview for the article, Sealy-Jefferson concluded: “Without the human right to stable, safe and affordable housing, it really jeopardizes your ability to do all… you need to do in order to have a good life; a good healthy life and a productive life.”

Read the entire story here: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2025/05/22/black-
women-survey-sheds-light-on-evictions/83744604007/

“Why don’t they just get a job?” It’s not unusual to hear a comment like this when the topic of homelessness comes up. The assumption, of course, is that those experiencing homelessness must be  unemployed. In fact, the opposite is true.

In his new book, “There Is No Place for Us,” Brian Goldstone reveals the facts about people who have jobs but no homes—people often invisible to most of society. The people in Goldstone’s book work but earn very little. They sleep in cars, couch-surf with friends, or pay—when they can—for a cheap motel. Since the official definition of literally homelessness is narrow (for example, those on the street or in a shelter), Goldstone believes the real number of homelessness could be six times the official number, perhaps up to four million. A staggering, troubling figure.

There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America: Goldstone, Brian: 9780593237144: Amazon.com: Books (Hard cover and Kindle formats available)
Working and Homelessness in America.
By Brian Goldstone
Crown. 420 pp.