I was reading this when I was attending the National Writing Project. Here is what I wrote in my journal back then:>>It was one of the most infuriating and outrageous books I have read. Kozol is very able to illuminate how humanity can allow humanity to suffer through indifference and lack of compassion. The stories of homeless children simply wrench your heart as the reader is angered by the way in which the government bureaucracy simply allows people to live in subhuman conditions.Kozol shatters the stereotype of the homeless as bums, people uneducated who have nothing to offer. As it turns out, many of these homeless were well-employed people who were hit by tragedy; loss of job, divorce, illness can all combine to bring any of us to an EAU (Emergency Assistance Unit) in search of a shelter. This is the most scary aspect of Kozol's book, the ease with which any of us can fall into homelessness. However, it does not end there. Kozol provides specific stories of homeless families, of children who are basically allowed to die while the wheels of bureaucracy slowly grind. He also writes of those who profit from human misery and of the overburdened heroes struggling to restore some humanity to those whom the system views mostly as a number-a social security number, a Medicare number, a welfare case number, a bed in a shelter number, a body bound for Potter's Field number. While the book was written in the 80s, all the reader needs to do is watch or read the news to see the situation has not changed. Thus the book is just as relevant today as it was a decade ago. The fact that the situation remains the same serves to validate his assessment that this country does not view homelessness as a crisis but as something to be swept under the rug. Overall, I found the book to be an eye-opener, a necessary piece of reading not just for activists but for each of us.
