Not So Far from Home: Owning Homelessness in My Own Backyard

Not So Far from Home brings a deeply personal perspective on how homelessness is a moral responsibility and community-building opportunity for the well-housed in America. In stories of service and friendship with un-homed neighbors, Charlie Quimby shows how poor people and marginal neighborhoods bear the human costs of insulating prosperous citizens like him.

In 2009 Quimby joined efforts to end homelessness by volunteering as a preschool classroom aide in an emergency family shelter. Prevention was the solution, he thought, and at-risk kids spoke to his heart. Moved by the children's potential and dismayed by their precarious circumstances, he began writing reports on his volunteer work as it expanded in Minneapolis and Western Colorado. Witnessing folks struggle against structural barriers to achieving stable housing, his commitment grew.

Not So Far from Home features the big-hearted sensibility and empathetic portrayals of people whose lives are often overlooked or discounted that brought acclaim for Quimby's novels, Monument Road and Inhabited. His short vignettes and essays convey the dignity and hopes of the diverse people he meets, while probing how flawed perceptions and judgments obstruct more humane solutions to ending homelessness.

Not So Far from Home stands out from the academic, social policy, and journalistic treatments of homelessness because Quimby brings an introspective literary style to his work in the trenches of community organizations. He is open about being a writer and reports respectfully, but collecting stories is not his motivation. He connects with people as a voluntary preschool aide, shower attendant, street barber, discussion leader, bike mechanic, and front door greeter, without trying to be social worker, therapist, or white savior. The bonds he forms are mutual and genuine.

For anyone considering a role in community affairs, his insights into volunteering and everyday activism will enlighten and inspire. Those already dedicated to fields of social service will find recognition of their work's importance and appreciation of their daily challenges.

Charlie Quimby's writing career has spanned plays, novels, newspapers, corporate communications, speechwriting, public policy think tanks, and social media—some of it award-winning, much of it lucrative, and all of it destined to be lost in time. He's served on arts, sports, community, and professional boards, public commissions, political campaigns, reunion committees, tutoring programs, and as a neighborhood organizer and HOA president. He is the author of Monument Road, Inhabited, and Planning to Stay: Learning to See the Physical Features of Your Neighborhood.

Quimby brings an introspective literary style to writing about his work in the trenches of community organizations. He is open about being a writer with the people he meets and reports respectfully, but collecting stories is not his motivation. He connects with people as a voluntary preschool aide, shower attendant, street barber, discussion leader, bike mechanic, and front door greeter, without trying to be social worker, therapist, or white savior. The bonds he forms are mutual and genuine.

His fictional work earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Monument Road was also honored as a selection for the independent booksellers Indie Next List. His nonfiction and marketing work has won scores of professional awards and been featured by publications such as Harvard Business Review and Financial World. He continues his volunteer and community building work in Minnesota and Colorado, organizing neighborhoods, raising money, supporting political campaigns, and continuing to write for people doing similar work on his free Substack newsletter, Small Ponds.