In honour of World Book Day yesterday, we wanted to recommend some very good books that help to give an insight into the multifaceted issues that people experiencing homelessness face, written by authors from all walks of life.

This Book Will Change Your Mind About Mental Health

Author Nathan Filer is a mental health nurse that writes through the lens of psychiatry to debunk myths, challenge assumptions, and offer fresh insight into what it means to be mentally ill and human.

The majority of our guests here at The Bridge suffer from mental health issues in a serious capacity, and there can be a problem where there’s a lot of stigma and misunderstanding, such as around schizophrenia. This book talks about real people and cases, and also talks about the theory behind mental health to help you understand it, demystifying it and giving you facts.

In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts

Author Gabor Maté is a physician that specialises in the study and treatment of addiction. He uses his years of experience treating addicts in Vancouver, Canada, to write this book in a perspective of sympathy and compassion. This book is seen as a call to arms for the decriminalisation of drugs, and gives a more sympathetic, informed view of addiction.

"Those whom we dismiss as 'junkies' are not creatures from a different world, only men and women mired at the extreme end of a continuum on which, here or there, all of us might well locate ourselves." - Gabor Maté

This book covers a lot of the same issues that we see at The Bridge, and shows how helping people isn’t always as easy as finding someone a house.

Trauma and Recovery

Author Judith Lewis Herman is a psychiatrist, researcher, and teacher, with experience in treating the effects of traumatic stress.

The book was hailed as a groundbreaking work when first published, and has changed the way that we think about and treat traumatic events, and trauma victims. Using her own research in domestic violence along with outside research of veterans and victims of terrorism, Herman shows parallels between private terror and public trauma. 

This book is a thorough look into a complex issue that many people who experience homelessness suffer with, but unfortunately not all are given the help they need or have their trauma taken seriously.

Poverty Safari

Author Darren McGarvey is a writer, performer, and columnist who had worked on the Violence Reduction Unit of a prison before working on 8 programmes with the BBC exploring root causes of anti-social behaviour and social deprivation.

This book explores how people from deprived communities across Britain feel misunderstood and unheard. McGarvey voices concerns about the anger that will continue to rise unless things change.

This book helps you to understand the mindset of people who have lived in poverty their whole lives, and how it affects education, physical and mental health, opportunities available, and why they choose to disengage from politics.

My Journey Home

Author Hannah Green has experienced homelessness for over a year after being sexually assaulted and abused as a child. As she moved from place to place she was let down by multiple different services, and eventually turned to drugs and alcohol. What saved her was a few good people who understood, and introduced her to surfing.

‘My Journey Home’ is a perfect read to get a first-person retelling of experiencing homelessness, addiction, and overcoming abuse.