Charley Willison, PhD, MPH, MA, is a National Institutes of Mental Health Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard University Department of Health Care Policy. Her work focuses on health policies that are designed and/or delivered at the local level, including homelessness, housing, behavioral health policies and disaster responses.

Winner, 2022 Dennis Judd Best Book Award, American Political Science Association

"Ungoverned and Out of Sight provides a fresh perspective on the complex governing arrangements for American housing policy and the implications for public health. A must read for public policy and public health scholars." -- Patricia Strach, University of Albany

"Charley Willison has written an urgently important book that explores and explains critical facets of the politics of homelessness policy. Marshalling an impressive range of qualitative and quantitative data, Ungoverned and Out of Sight highlights homelessness as a vital public health problem while advancing our understanding of how local policy processes shape homelessness governance. With remarkable clarity, devastating depth, and compelling breadth, Willison offers knowledge that is crucial for addressing homelessness as a structural political problem. This book is a must read for political scientists, public health scholars, policy makers, and everyone who is part of the decentralized complex of actors who play a role in the systems that structure homelessness." -- Jamila Michener, Cornell Center for Health Equity

"Homelessness is viscerally experienced at the local level. Local governments play a crucial role in shaping factors that affect homelessness, like housing development and police behavior, yet direct responses to homelessness exist largely outside of local government. Why would this be? Using novel quantitative data along with in-depth qualitative evidence from three divergent cases, Charley Willison identifies four influential actors in homelessness response and explains how this history of devolution, combined with a lack of coordination among powerful players, contributed to homelessness policy responses coming up short." -- Jessica Trounstine, University of California, Merced