Join us November 13 at 6:00pm for a special event with Kevin F. Adler, author of When We Walk By.
Questions? Email us at events@napabookmine.com.
ABOUT THE BOOK
For readers of Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, By America, Tracy Kidder’s Rough Sleepers or any one who finds themselves no longer able to turn their back on our unhoused neighbors and our shared crisis of humanity, When We Walk By offers compassion and strategy.
At once a thorough analysis of America’s homelessness crisis and a rigorously researched, solutions-based guide to ending it, When We Walk By is the first book of its kind. The authors introduce the concept of “relational poverty,” a dangerous form of isolation and loneliness commonly experienced by our unhoused neighbors—the people who live beside us, on our block, in our neighborhoods, who are experiencing homelessness. Through a combination of alienation, social exclusion and learned assumptions about who becomes homeless and why, many of us unwittingly choose not to see or engage with our unhoused neighbors. Further, the authors argue that relational poverty poses material emotional and physical harm to those experiencing homelessness, while costing each of us our full, shared humanity. When We Walk By takes seriously the real, intersectional reasons everyday people become housing insecure: eviction, domestic violence, racism, wages that don’t adequately cover the cost of living, medical emergencies, an inhumane criminal justice system, the price of escaping a dangerous home environment and more.
ABOUT KEVIN F. ADLER
Kevin F. Adler is an award-winning social entrepreneur, nonprofit leader and author. Since 2014, he has served as the Founder and CEO of Miracle Messages, a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to helping people experiencing homelessness rebuild their social support systems and financial security, primarily through family reunification services, a phone buddy program and direct cash transfers, including one of the first basic income pilots for unhoused individuals in the United States. Kevin’s pioneering work on homelessness and relational poverty has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, in his TED Talk and elsewhere.
Kevin is also the author of Natural Disasters as a Catalyst for Social Capital, a book that explores how shared traumas can unite or divide communities. He has been honored as a Presidential Leadership Scholar, TED Resident, and Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, for which he served one year in Oaxaca, Mexico. He received his MPhil in sociology from the University of Cambridge and his BA in politics from Occidental College. Kevin lives in the Bay Area with his wife, Tajáh. Motivated by his late mother’s work teaching at underserved adult schools and nursing homes, and his late uncle’s 30 years living on and off the streets, Kevin believes in a future where everyone is recognized as invaluable and interconnected. Learn more at kevinfadler.com or follow him @kevinfadler.
How to end homelessness in America: a must-read guide to understanding housing instability, supporting our unhoused neighbors, and reclaiming our humanity.
A deeply humanizing analysis that will change the way you think about poverty and homelessness—for the socially engaged reader of Isabel Wilkerson's Caste and Matthew Desmond's Evicted.