Politicians, social administrators, economists, biographers and historians have shared the belief that the Charity Organisation Society effectively rationalised relief to the Victorian poor and illustrated the advantages of caring voluntarism over impersonal state handouts.
Homelessness is now a much greater problem than twenty years ago. It traces how for centuries emergent laws have combated alleged threats from unruly vagrants while largely ignoring causal factors like economic fluctuation, bad harvests, disease and war.
This volume challenges many widely held beliefs about the efficacy of the London Charity Organization Society. It explains why... Læs mere