Summary Of A Place On The Corner By Elijah Anderson

The book that I have chosen was “A Place on the Corner”. It was published in 1981 by Elijah Anderson through University of Chicago. In the book we learn some of the inner workings of shelter life, and we ultimately learn why homeless people are homeless; they lack housing. While reading the book the thesis that Anderson introduces is- to prove to the reader that the homeless are not homeless necessarily because they are crazy, maladjusted, drug/alcohol addicts, etc. Instead, they have reached circumstances beyond their control in which they have no place to go other than the streets or shelters. Throughout the book Anderson uses his primary information that he gathered at the shelters in order to support his thesis. In his research, Anderson established Jelly's as a place in “three different ways: a physical place, place in a social class system, and place as a psychological position” (Anderson, p. 8). He uses these three aspects of place at Jelly's to study and observe group life at

are homeless (Anderson, 1978, p. 67). Society does not care, people have preconceived notions about these people, whether they are taught (by parents, peers, society) or they are learned (once again by parents, peers, society, etc.) Many individuals have already decided how they feel about and view the men of Jelly's and the homeless women. However, Anderson does not feel this way. Instead he want’s to understand why these men and women are the way they are. As Anderson enter these worlds and examine and analyze them in hopes to understand why they operate the way they do. Then from their findings, they hope to shatter illusions of the society and provide real insight into these worlds. These accounts help to support the books' theses. Without these accounts, there is little information the authors could use to provide the insight needed to inform the public of the realities of the