Presents the definitive discussion of housing and social justice in the United States. Challenging the conventional definition of housing affordability, this title offers insights about the nature, causes, and consequences of the affordability problem and presents proposals for solving a problem that afflicts one-third of this nation.

Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: What Is Shelter Poverty? 1. Human Needs and Housing Affordability 2. The Shelter-Poverty Concept of Affordability Part II: Why Does Shelter Poverty Exist and Persist? 3. The Historical Roots of the Affordability Problem to the Early 1930s 4. The Triumph and Illusions of Housing Policy and the Economy, 1930-1970 5. Economic Crisis, Shelter Poverty, and Housing Programs, 1970 to the Early 1990s 6. The Instability of Housing Production and Finance Since the Late 1960s Part III: How Can Shelter Poverty Be Overcome? 7. Social Ownership 8. Financing and Implementing Social Ownership 9. Housing Reform with a Vision: Ownership and Production 10. Housing Reform with a Vision: Financing and Other Elements 11. Housing Affordability and Social change 12. Conclusion: Shelter Poverty and the Right to Housing Appendix A: Methods and Issues in Deriving the Shelter-Poverty Affordability Standard Appendix B: Determining the Extent and Distribution of Housing Affordability Problems: Methodological Comments Appendix C: Tables of Shelter Poverty and Conventional Affordability Problems, 1970-1991 Notes References Index