Complimentary Refreshments and Cash Bar begin at 5:30.
Lectures begin at 6:00 and last approximately one hour, including time for questions.
Homelessness is on the rise in the United States. The National Alliance to End Homelessness reports that from 2019-2023 the number of people who experienced being unhoused for the first time increased by 23.3 percent. In 2024, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Grants Pass v. Johnson that municipalities banning unhoused people from camping on public property if there are no shelter beds available is not a violation of the 8th Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. As expected, many municipalities, including Greenwood, passed ordinances banning camping on public property. This talk explores the roots of homelessness in the United States and the effectiveness of these and other policy approaches to addressing it.
Dr. Brian Pitman is an assistant professor of criminology at Lander University. He has a B.S. from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, an M.A. from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and a Ph.D. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Dr. Pitman’s research focuses on homelessness, the history of policing, and the socio-economic and health effects of the criminal legal system.