In Family Homelessness, Grimshaw reviews existing research on the causes and consequences of family homelessness in England, as well as considering New Labour's responses to this issue since 1997. The book provides a thorough and helpful reference text for students and researchers working in this area. This review provides an overview of the book's structure before placing Grimshaw's analysis in its wider context and suggesting some additional references for those interested in family homelessness.

Grimshaw's short introductory chapter tackles questions of definition and measurement. It explains how statutory homelessness is defined in England, considers how this relates to other ways of defining homelessness, and briefly discusses ways we might think of the causes of homelessness. Importantly, Grimshaw gives a taster of the legal debates that have flourished around interpretations of homelessness legislation and acknowledges the link between resource constraints and definitions of homelessness in England. The chapter usefully discusses available data sources for measuring homelessness and related issues, and highlights current gaps in available data.

Grimshaw moves on to consider the legislative background to provision for homeless families in England. Chapter 2 gives a good account of legal and policy changes in England, with a brief overview of how the current approach has evolved from the Poor Law Acts of 1601 and 1834, and a more detailed consideration of the more recent evolution of homelessness legislation, since the 1977 Homelessness Act and up to 2002.

The bulk of the book (Chapters 3–7) is dedicated to a review of research and literature on the causes and consequences of family homelessness. Each chapter focuses on a different dimension of the issue, with Chapter 3 focusing on the causes of family homelessness. The discussion divides causes into those relating to personal vulnerability (social support, mental health, substance abuse, etc.) and those relating to structural factors (poverty, ethnicity, eviction, etc.). The discussion is covers a lot of ground, but does not reflect deeply enough on how structural and personal factors are related and where this distinction might be blurred or problematic.

The next three chapters consider the links between homelessness and domestic violence, physical and mental health, family functioning and the education of homeless children. Each of these chapters provides a wide-ranging review of relevant research, evaluation, policy approaches and interventions and also reflects on where there are key gaps in data and evidence. The discussion is accompanied by a thematically organised set of references at the back of the book, giving a short summary of each reference text and, in so doing, providing useful information to guide further reading.

The author returns to issues of policy and legislative change in her last chapter, in which New Labour's approach to family homelessness in considered in some depth. The chapter describes the new duties of local authorities to understand and respond to local homelessness, the emergence and implementation of the preventative approach to homelessness, use of temporary accommodation and approaches to utilising housing stock (including privately rented housing and social housing).

The thematic discussions that structure Family Homelessness are a valuable aid for those navigating the research base surrounding family homelessness in England. They will also be of relevance to those interested in broader issues of poverty and vulnerability among families and children. The descriptive and tightly structured style adopted by Grimshaw produces an easy-to-use guide to the issues under review, but also leaves the reader seeking synthesis, analysis, reflection and contextualisation of the topics covered. Political analysis is either absent or crude and little effort is made to put the issue of family homelessness in context for the reader, either internationally or relative to other groups experiencing homelessness in England.

When focusing on family homelessness in England it is critical to recognise that current policy provides homeless families with a robust statutory safety net to protect them from the worst experiences associated with housing need. Current policy in England gives certain ‘priority’ groups (including the majority of families) a legal right to housing, or more specifically to suitable accommodation lasting in most cases until settled housing becomes available. England (and the rest of the UK) is highly unusual in pursuing such a rights-based approach to homelessness, which aims to empower homeless households to meet their housing needs (DCLG, 2007). Grimshaw's use of US data and research in the review must be read in this context, and although she acknowledges that differences between the US and England must be kept in mind when using such studies, a deeper understanding of the highly dissimilar policy structures surrounding homeless families in the two countries is necessary.

As well as benefiting from a robust set of homelessness policies internationally, homeless families also fare substantially better than some other groups of homeless people accessing services in England (for example, single homeless adults and homeless young people). A recent study exploring the experiences of homeless families in England will provide useful supplementary reading in this regard, pointing as it does to the positive impact of the existing safety net for homeless families (DCLG, 2008).

Overall, Grimshaw's book will be most useful for those interested in empirical evidence relating to family homelessness and factual accounts of policy changes and interventions. The book is information rich, but not as informative as it might have been had the author risked more reflection on and interpretation of the evidence documented and reviewed.