Josephine Ensign

Ensign assesses the effectiveness of policies such as child tax credits, rental subsidies, eviction moratoriums, and programs for vehicle residents. As an expert in the field who has also experienced homelessness, Ensign draws from an extensive oral history project to share poignant firsthand accounts that inform and enrich her storytelling. This narrative incorporates human rights, support services, public health issues, and a path forward that acknowledges the realities of people living unhoused.

Amid the rapidly evolving public health and political landscape accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Way Home seeks to deepen our understanding of the historical roots of homelessness and highlight innovative public policy and program efforts at the national, state, and local levels to address it.

Josephine Ensign is professor in the School of Nursing and adjunct professor in the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. She is the author of Catching Homelessness: A Nurse’s Story of Falling through the Safety Net, Soul Stories: Voices from the Margins, and the Washington State Book Award Finalist Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in Seattle.

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