Book Discussions

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Books for community discussion
We encourage educators, community groups, and residents to read and discuss the following books. Several of the authors below will be part of the Summit program and related events, and the summit will engage with ideas from these books. Organizers will be providing discussion guides and additional resources to encourage conversations about these books.


For further study


Bold=Featured speakers at our Housing Summit; *=Housing Summit Steering Committee member

Suggested discussion questions for groups:

  • How has this book affected your understanding of home?
  • How has this book shaped your understanding of the experiences of people in your community/ in the wider city?
  • What do you see as the relationships between housing policies that affect residents' access to housing and the quality of community?
  • What would a human rights-based approach to housing look like? What would it take to move existing policies in this direction?
  • What factors keep people from achieving housing security?
  • How does the lack of decent and affordable housing affect individuals? How does it affect neighborhoods? What are its impacts on the city itself?
  • What are the social costs of our society's failure to provide decent and affordable housing?
  • How might you define decent housing?
  • How does the thinking about housing presented in this book compare/contrast with prevailing public and media assumptions?