When We Walk By

When We Walk By by Kevin F. Adler, Donald W. Burnes et al.

Social Issues (2023 - 235 pp.)

When We Walk By is a brand-new part-monograph, part-activism book by San Francisco-based social entrepreneur Kevin Adler, academic Donald Burnes, and two assistants,* exploring the causes and effects of homelessness in the United States, as well as possible solutions. Being from Toronto, a city in the midst of a housing crisis, I compared the situations in my hometown, San Francisco and Los Angeles as I read the book, as well as the (so-far) attempted solutions. 

At the heart of the book’s message is Kevin’s company Miracle Messages, which has reunited 800 unhoused people since 2014. Among their innovative methods include attaching body cameras to unhoused volunteers, which allows their stories to be told in real time, and the extensive use of social media to locate family members across the United States. On a personal note, the book is dedicated to Kevin’s uncle Mark, who lived on the streets of Santa Cruz for three decades, and is sadly no longer with us.

The book flows easily, with each chapter exploring a different facet of homelessness. From Kevin’s personal story in the introduction, the book shifts into a more neutral tone, covering topics like relational poverty, paternalism, and transcarceration. Relational poverty is straightforward, in which people can experience homelessness not so much due to financial or logistical concerns, but due to the lack of a social network, which isolates them from their peers. The authors divide paternalism into progressive paternalism, which is making someone else’s decisions out of a misguided belief that they are being helped, and punitive paternalism, which is making someone else’s decision as though the decider is handing out a criminal sentence. (64) The authors point out a particularly bizarre instance of paternalism, in which a person experiencing homelessness received a “Blue Apron-style” package of food; the package contained tuna and peanut butter, and the recipient was allergic to both. (72) Depending on the aid offered and what the unhoused person needs, a supposedly humanitarian gesture may actually be harmful.

Transcarceration is a relatively new word within the sociological lexicon, so I’ll post the Legal Information Institute definition in full:

Transcarceration is the transfer of prisoners or persons institutionalized for mental illness from one facility to another of the same type. Through transcarceration, prisoners are moved to another prison, and the institutionalized mentally ill are moved to another psychiatric hospital.

Entering the public eye during the dismantling of the often-horrifying state mental asylum system, transcarceration saw the mentally ill shuttled to prisons or the streets. As the authors note, this process causes them to frequently lose social connections (for example, if they are transported to a different part of a large state) or lose access to necessary medical treatment. (119, 151-152)

The invisibility of homelessness is striking. Contrary to the stigmatized stereotypes of disheveled, reeking addicts rabble-rousing on street corners, over half the unhoused live in shelters, and a significant portion are families. (2) These shelters often separate families due to stringent gender requirements, and in some cases are even less safe than life on the streets. (97)

My favourite of the authors’ recommended solutions is the tiny home village movement. Having lived in a Toronto-sized apartment, and being familiar with the similar Canadian concept of “bunkies”,** I thought immediately of how relatively simple tiny homes are to construct.*** Ranging from 100-200 square feet or thereabouts, tiny houses can provide people a place to sleep and store their belongings while taking up very little space. They’re not just for the homeless either – I have a friend in Alaska who is currently planning a tiny home village for people on fishing vacations. What surprised me, as the authors point out, is that tiny homes were one of the solutions San Francisco employed following the 1906 earthquake, which displaced 250,000 of the city’s the 400,000-person population. The San Franciscans of that age were more than likely to go from  squatting in rubble to living in tiny houses, through, as the authors emphasize, no fault of their own. (212-213) As an erstwhile student of American history, that tale of tiny houses, right in Kevin’s back yard, brought a smile to my face.

Less convincing are the discussions of wages. Unexplained is why a single earner making the minimum wage should be able to support a family of four (108); as a Torontonian, it would puzzle me to see this idealistic scenario play out in my city when many middle-class people here can barely support themselves. The growth of CEO salaries relative to average worker salaries is also mentioned (109), but the wealthiest CEOs make relatively little in base pay compared to their benefits, stock, stock options and restricted stock units. People living paycheck to paycheck frequently need money right now, as opposed to stock options that may take years to vest.

A further research direction that could be useful in the broader housing crisis discussion is the work on learned helplessness, broadly defined as “the behavior exhibited by a subject after enduring repeated aversive stimuli beyond their control.” If someone’s repeated attempts to secure housing are met with draconian restrictions, or they are subjected to constant paternalism by well-meaning (or not-so-well-meaning) authorities who never listen to them, why should they keep trying? Why shouldn’t they give up and resign themselves to life on the streets? True help may come in the form of giving someone hope.

My own volunteer experience is adjacent to Miracle Messages and other unhoused-supporting charities; I have put in over 120 hours in 2023 at my local food bank.**** There, I work in the community kitchen, cooking meals that are frozen and then distributed to over 180 locations across Toronto. I am certain I have met some people experiencing homelessness during my time there, and others living in precarious arrangements that could lead to homelessness. However, at staff and volunteer lunches I eat the same meals I cook for anyone who stops by, no questions asked. Vegetarian options are always available, and only foods containing known ingredients are used in order to avoid accidentally giving someone an allergic reaction. This food bank also accepts medication donations, which are often more necessary to sustain those experiencing homelessness than a can of tuna or a free burger from McDonald’s. In Toronto, a wealthy city by any stretch of the imagination, I meet people all the time who have at least some of the same needs as the people whose stories come onto the page throughout When We Walk By.

Those stories make the book different from a pure academic monograph. They humanize homelessness, not through attempts to cherry-pick the direst situations possible, but to show who the authors actually met on their journeys. Talk to a person experiencing homelessness, and you might meet Adam, Ray, Gabe, Lainie, Jeffrey, Linda, David, Timothy, Rand, Tom, Elizabeth, Joseph, Angelo, or any of the others. (Ronnie, sadly, passed away while awaiting senior housing.) Some of them no doubt just want to re-meet their families, shed the stigma of homelessness, and get out of the cold.

Ease of Reading: 7

Educational Content: 7

*Amanda Banh and Andrijana Bilbija, two recent graduates. 

**It’s tougher than you’d think to find bunkie websites unaffiliated with any particular seller. I myself have no stake in the bunkie industry.

***Given the high cost of “frequent-flyer” hospitalizing, policing and prosecuting the unhoused, it may actually be cheaper to just build them all tiny houses. (122-124) I’m a lawyer, and I would appreciate a tiny house, if only to have a place downtown I can stay at instead of paying for taxi fare home. For someone with no home, the need is far more acute.

****The Daily Bread Food Bank at Islington and Lake Shore, for those interested in seeing how a large-scale food bank works. A nice young man recognized me from there at a restaurant in Guelph in early December. Two middle-class people, in a city an hour outside of Toronto, and the food bank was our common ground.