The Man in the Dog Park: Coming Up Close to Homelessness

The Man in the Dog Park offers the reader a rare window into homeless life.

Spurred by a personal relationship with a homeless man who became her co-author, Cathy A. Small takes a compelling look at what it means and what it takes to be homeless. Interviews and encounters with dozens of homeless people lead us into a world that most have never seen. We travel as an intimate observer into the places that many homeless frequent, including a community shelter, a day labor agency, a panhandling corner, a pawn shop, and a HUD housing office.

Through these personal stories, we witness the obstacles that homeless people face, and the ingenuity it takes to negotiate life without a home. The Man in the Dog Park points to the ways that our own cultural assumptions and blind spots are complicit in US homelessness and contribute to the degree of suffering that homeless people face. At the same time, Small, Kordosky and Moore show us how our own sense of connection and compassion can bring us into touch with the actions that will lessen homelessness and bring greater humanity to the experience of those who remain homeless.

The raw emotion of The Man in the Dog Park will forever change your appreciation for, and understanding of, the homeless life so many deal with outside of the limelight of contemporary society. 

Cathy A. Small is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University and a resident of Flagstaff, Arizona, where she enjoys life with her spouse, Phyllis, of thirty years. She is the author of Voyages and, as Rebekah Nathan, My Freshman Year.

Jason Kordosky is the Regional Field Organizer for the Northern Arizona Climate Change Alliance. He resides in Munds Park, Arizona.

Ross Moore is a disabled Vietnam veteran and resident of northern Arizona. After surviving three decades of recurrent homelessness, he now lives with his wife, "Wendi," in his own double-wide trailer home.