Publisher's Synopsis
Drawing on personal interviews and financial reports, Douglas R. Imig examines the political activity and organizational crises of antipoverty groups including the Center on Social Welfare Policy and Law, the Food Research and Action Center, the Community Nutrition Institute, Bread for the World, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and the Children's Defense Fund.
His findings delineate how electoral policy and economic change in the 1980s posed a direct threat to the welfare of the poor, and suggest reasons why no massive mobilization for social justice emerged. Still, the dogged efforts of advocates and activists culminated in the passage of the 1987 McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, the first positive federal intervention into domestic social policy since the Reagan inauguration. Imig helps us understand the complex relationships between opportunity and action that characterize all social movements.
