"Oh Give Me a Home! Homeless Resistance in Three Western Cities," a lecture by University of Colorado at Boulder sociology Professor Dan Cress, will be presented from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday, April 1, in room 235 of the University Memorial Center.
The lecture is free and open to the public. The event is sponsored by the Center of the American West.
The emergence of the homeless problem during the 1980s was felt in every major metropolitan area in the United States, according to Cress. Yet the dynamics that contributed to people becoming homeless, the homeless population that resulted from those dynamics and the ways in which this population resisted its homelessness varied greatly by region.
Cress will draw on four years of participant-observation research with homeless activists and their supporters in Denver; Oakland, Calif.; and Tucson, Ariz. He will discuss how the political economy and political culture of the West contributed to the creation of the homeless problem, generated a regionally distinct homeless population, and shaped the forms of resistance employed by homeless people.
Cress' research interests focus on social movements, particularly those of marginalized populations. His work on homeless protest has appeared in the American Sociological Review, The Sociological Quarterly and Mobilization.
For information call 303-492-4879.