Home ownership has been widely regarded as the best financial investment in the pursuit of wealth accumulation. Americans believe that the appreciated value of a home provides a great hedge against inflation, giving homeowners an opportunity to make a profit when they sell the property. Today, two-thirds of American families own their homes. Nearly 80 percent of the 78 million baby boomers are homeowners. Many of them have bought and sold several homes. Yet close to 90 percent of American families are broke. Nothing consumes more of our hard-earned money than home ownership. What if this popular, best investment choice is nothing more than a dangerous dream? Is home ownership simply a huge economic scam designed to keep buyers broke? Could homeowners be working to pay a mortgage that make their lenders rich while they stay poor? What if home equity is only an illusion? Could renters be in a better financial position than those who own their home? Renters Win, Homeowners Lose: Revealing The Biggest Scam In America is a bold approach in unraveling the long-term financial reality of home ownership in America. The book compares buying a home to renting and reveals that renters clearly have tangible, financial advantages over the majority of homeowners. Renters can truly be winners! Tables and models are used throughout the book to poignantly demonstrate that most homeowners receive no more than a zero percent return on their investment, and many lose money in the deal. Renters Win, Homeowners Lose: Revealing the Biggest Scam in America will get you to rethink the way you view home ownership versus renting. The book is a thought-provoking masterpiece.

Home ownership has been widely regarded as the best financial investment in the pursuit of wealth accumulation. What if this popular investment choice is nothing more than a dangerous dream? Is home ownership simply a huge economic scam designed to keep buyers broke? Could homeowners be working to pay a mortgage that makes their lenders rich while they stay poor? Could renters be in a better financial position than those who own their homes? Renters Win, Home Owners Lose is a bold approach in unraveling the long-term financial reality of home ownership in America. The book compares buying a home versus renting and reveals that renters clearly have tangible advantages over the majority of homeowners. Tables and models are used throughout the book to demonstrate that most homeowners receive no more than a zero percent return on their investment, and many lose money in the deal.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • One of the most acclaimed books of our time, this modern classic “has set a new standard for reporting on poverty” (Barbara Ehrenreich, The New York Times Book Review). In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur “Genius” Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Hailed as “wrenching and revelatory” (The Nation), “vivid and unsettling” (New York Review of Books), Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America’s most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY President Barack Obama • The New York Times Book Review • The Boston Globe • The Washington Post • NPR • Entertainment Weekly • The New Yorker • Bloomberg • Esquire • BuzzFeed • Fortune • San Francisco Chronicle • Milwaukee Journal Sentinel • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Politico • The Week • Chicago Public Library • BookPage • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly • Booklist • Shelf Awareness WINNER OF: The National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction • The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction • The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism • The PEN/New England Award • The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE AND THE KIRKUS PRIZE “Evicted stands among the very best of the social justice books.”—Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth “Gripping and moving—tragic, too.”—Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones “Evicted is that rare work that has something genuinely new to say about poverty.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Secular society coupled with religious culture has inadvertently created a climate in America that blindly praises political correctness and the legislation of questionable laws. Religious traditionalists must now contend with how to remain spiritually relevant in perilous and polarizing times without compromising age-old biblical practices and principles. A glorified biblical commentary, you might say this book addresses almost everything you wanted to ask your local traditional religious leader but was afraid to. If I cant share my wisdom and experiences and exercise my talents, gifts, and skills at the slight chance I may inspire and help others, what good is my life?

This book uniquely demonstrates how a new combination of communities, progressive visions, and strategies provides a path to defeat fascist machinations and strengthens social justice movements. Taking the incredible twists and turns of elections as a given, the book takes the issues, grievances and solutions of social movements as its grounding. Would-be change agents, be they first-time voters, freshly minted activists, impacted communities, or veteran strategists, will find answers to questions of voting, organizing, and mobilization. In doing so, readers will find answers to activating their networks and communities not merely to vote, but how to build on their “Emergency Election” mobilizing and power-building efforts to win their agendas, regardless of who holds office. This theoretically and empirically informed handbook for activists, voters, their organizations, unions, and communities provides both mobilizing tools and talking points about the elections’ most vital and contested issues.

Foreword by Nan Roman, President and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness This book explains how to end the U.S. homelessness crisis by bringing together the best scholarship on the subject and sharing solutions that both local communities and national policy-makers can apply now In the Midst of Plenty shifts our understanding of the phenomenon of homelessness away from issues of individual disability and embeds it in larger contexts of poverty, income inequality, housing affordability, and social exclusion. Homelessness experts Shinn and Khadduri provide guidance on how to end homelessness for people who experience it and how to prevent so many people from reaching the point where they have no alternative to sleeping on the street or in emergency shelters. The book is organized around four questions: Who becomes homeless? Why do people become homeless? How do we end homelessness? How do we prevent it? Based on a comprehensive look at relevant research, the authors show that we know how to end homelessness—if we devote the necessary resources to doing so. In the Midst of Plenty: Homelessness and What to Do About It is an excellent resource for professionals and decision-makers in the homeless services system, as well as for anyone who is interested in helping to end homelessness. It also can be used as a text in undergraduate or masters courses in public policy, sociology, psychology, social work, urban studies, or housing policy. “The knowledgeable and thoughtful authors of this book—two brilliant women who know as much as anyone in the country about the nature of homelessness and its solutions—have done a great service by taking us on a journey through the history of homelessness, how our responses have changed, and how we can end it.” Nan Roman, President and CEO National Alliance to End Homelessness. “Shinn and Khadduri’s new book is a thorough yet concise examination of what we know about the nature and causes of homelessness, and the crucial lessons learned. This critically important work provides a roadmap to restoring basic housing and income security as viable policy options, in the face of our daunting inequality divide that otherwise threatens millions with destitution and homelessness.” Dennis Culhane, Dana and Andrew Stone Professor of Social Policy, University of Pennsylvania “Marybeth Shinn and Jill Khadduri have combined their significant expertise to create an essential guide about the history of modern homelessness and to offer a clear path forward to end this American tragedy. Their policy recommendations on ending homelessness are culled from the best about what we know works.” Barbara Poppe, Executive Director US Interagency Council on Homeless, 2009-2014.

In Understanding Urban Politics: Institutions, Representation, and Policies, Timothy B. Krebs and Arnold Fleischmann introduce a framework that focuses on the role of institutions in establishing the political “rules of the game,” the representativeness of city government, the influence of participation in local democracy, and how each of these features influences the adoption and implementation of public policies. Part 1 lays the groundwork for the rest of the book by exploring the many meanings of “urban,” analyzing what local governments do, and providing a history of American urban development. Part 2 examines the organizations and procedures that are central to urban politics and policy making: intergovernmental relations, local legislatures, and the local executive branch. Part 3 looks at elections and voting, local campaigns, and non-voting forms of participation. The four chapters in Part 4 focus on the policy process and the delivery of local services, local government finances, “Building the City” (economic development, land use, and housing), and policies affecting the quality of life (public safety, the environment, “morality” issues, and urban amenities). Krebs and Fleischmann bolster students’ learning and skills with guiding questions at the start of each chapter, which ends with key terms, a summary, discussion questions, and research exercises. The appendix and website aid these efforts, as does a website for instructors.