No Room of Her Own / Palgrave Studies in Oral History (PDF)

DESIREE HELLEGERS is Co-Director of the Center for Social and Environmental Justice, Associate Chair and Associate Professor of English at Washington State University, Vancouver, Canada. She is an active member of various advocacy organizations and her writing has appeared in such publications as Counterpunch.

"No Room of her Own will take its place next to Liebow's Tell Them Who I Am as a definitive contemporary human document on the lives of homeless women." Mitchell Duneier, Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology, Princeton University"Some of my deepest conversations have been with wise homeless sisters of all colors on the underside of America - yet they have a rich understanding of America! Don't miss this book!" Cornel West, Princeton University"Heartbreaking and inspiring stories of courageous women enduring and triumphing over adversity few of us can imagine. Desiree Hellegers brilliantly collates and connects the stories of disparate homeless women. We learn much about these citizens with no addresses. They have been studied to death but rarely do we hear their voices. Hellegers skillfully and with compassion weaves the tapestry of these women s testimonies. From Sweet Pea to Debra and Marlowe, their accounts of survival and dignity reveal hidden truths of gender relations and our political and social culture. No Room of Her Own breaks the silences surrounding the national disgrace of homelessness. These women must be heard." David Barsamian, founder and director of Alternative Radio "After reading No Room of Her Own, I m more convinced than ever that unless we bend toward justice, years hence, our children will look back upon current policies - that are producing poverty and homelessness alongside peopleless homes - as a societal experiment that is far worse than the Tuskegee study, in which the ravages of syphilis were studied while the individuals were left untreated." Stephen Bezruchka M.D., M.P.H., School of Public Health, University of Washington"Hellegers carefully and contextually places the reader into the individual lives of un-housed women who unmistakably form the very subtext for social justice." Neil J. Donovan, Executive Director, National Coalition for the Homeless

"No Room of Her Own is a gift to readers who want to understand the