Lander University invites the Greenwood and Lander communities to attend the next installment of the Community Lecture Series Tuesday, Feb. 3, at the Arts Center of Greenwood (120 Main Street). Dr. Brian Pitman, assistant professor of criminology at Lander, will give a presentation titled “A Homeless ‘Crisis’? Understanding the Roots of and Policy Approaches to Homelessness in the U.S.” The program is free and open to the public and will begin at 6 p.m., with light refreshments and a cash bar beginning at 5:30 p.m. The lecture will last approximately one hour, with time for questions.
About the Event
Homelessness is on the rise in the United States. The National Alliance to End Homelessness reports that between 2019 and 2023, the number of people who experienced being unhoused for the first time increased by 23.3 percent. In 2024, the U.S. 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 a result, many municipalities have passed ordinances that ban camping on public property. This lecture will explore the roots of homelessness in the United States, and the effectiveness of these and other policy approaches to address 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. Pitman’s research focuses on homelessness, the history of policing and the socio-economic and health effects of the criminal legal system.
Please visit www.lander.edu/events for updates and to confirm event times and venues. For questions, please contact Assistant Provost Dr. Mark Rollins at 864-388-8563 or mrollins@lander.edu.