Central Kansas Library System

"For forty-seven days in 1999, Phyllis Cole-Dai and James Murray lived by choice on the streets of Columbus, Ohio, the nation's fifteenth-largest city. They went to the streets to practice presence: to offer nonjudgmental attention and compassion to everyone they met, especially the chronically homeless, who are so often ignored, scorned, abused, or shunned. 'The Emptiness of Our Hands,' now in its third edition, is a meditative chronicle of their...

At the age of twenty, African American Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son. Motivated by the...

Journalist Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary and their four children lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing...

Meet Denver, a man raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana in the 1960s; a man who escaped, hopping a train to wander, homeless, for eighteen years on the streets of Dallas, Texas. No longer a slave, Denver's life was still hopeless, until God moved. First came a godly woman who prayed, listened, and obeyed. And then came her husband, Ron, an international arts dealer at home in a world of Armani-suited millionaires. And then they all came...

Fifty Sandwiches is a nonprofit book dedicated to sharing the unknown stories and experiences of America's homeless. After Justin Wilder Doering traveled the country for four months conducting interviews, Fifty Sandwiches offers an intimate portrayal of the homeless experience in the United States.

Reveals what it means to be homeless, the causes, and the economic consequences.

"It is no secret that hopelessness and despair have emerged in our world to a staggering degree. Broken relationships, financial uncertainties, and seemingly impossible situations are plaguing multitudes tempting them to give up on life. These writings are an attempt to offer hope in the midst of the darkness so prevalent in our world today. The challenges surrounding each one of the 52 short stories included in this book have been immense; yet the...