Biography
Interest Areas
Homelessness, Relational poverty and social isolation, Social capital and community resilience, Poverty and inequality, Ethnography and qualitative methods, Public sociology
Kevin F. Adler is a sociologist, social entrepreneur, and author whose research focuses on homelessness, relational poverty, and inequality. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative methods, his work examines how social connection shapes experiences of homelessness and broader patterns of exclusion and belonging. His research interests also include public sociology and community-engaged approaches to social change.
Adler is the founder and board chair of Miracle Messages, an award-winning nonprofit that reconnects unhoused individuals with loved ones and supportive social networks. Since 2014, the organization has reunited more than 1,200 people experiencing homelessness with family, facilitated more than 500,000 minutes of calls and texts between volunteers and unhoused neighbors, and helped launch one of the nation’s first randomized controlled trials of guaranteed income for unhoused individuals—a $2.1 million study funded by Google.org and led by researchers at USC. Adler is the author of When We Walk By and Natural Disasters as a Catalyst for Social Capital, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, PBS NewsHour, and in his TED Talk. Adler is currently working on his next book while pursuing a Ph.D. in Sociology at the UW–Madison. He previously earned graduate degrees from the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy and the University of Cambridge.
Previous Degrees
MPA, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, 2024
M.Phil., Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, 2009
B.A., Department of Politics, Occidental College, 2007
Publications
BOOKS
Kevin F. Adler and Donald W. Burnes. Forthcoming. When We Walk By: The Workbook – A 30-Day Guide to Understanding Homelessness and Becoming Part of the Solution. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Kevin F. Adler and Donald W. Burnes, with Amanda Banh and Andrijana Bilbija. 2023. When We Walk By: Forgotten Humanity, Failed Systems, and the Path to Ending Homelessness in America. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Kevin F. Adler. 2015. Natural Disasters as a Catalyst for Social Capital: A Study of the 500-Year Flood in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
Benjamin F. Henwood, Amanda Landrian Gonzalez, Himal Suthar, Gisele Corletto, Peichen Liu, Kevin F. Adler, Caroline Sweeney, Lynden C. Bond, and Deborah K. Padgett. Forthcoming. “Results of a Mixed-Methods Experiment of Unconditional Cash Transfers and Social Support for Californian Unhoused People.” Social Work.
Amanda Gonzalez, Peichen Liu, Himal Suthar, Gisele Corletto, Kevin F. Adler, and Benjamin Henwood. 2026. “Risk factors and health correlates of loneliness among people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles and San Francisco.” Discover Public Health, 23, 10.1186/s12982-026-01857-7.
Benjamin Henwood, Bo-Kyung Elizabeth Kim, Amy Stein, Gisele Corletto, Himal Suthar, Kevin F. Adler, Madeline Mazzocchi, Julia Ip, and Deborah K. Padgett. 2024. “Miracle friends and miracle money in California: a mixed-methods experiment of social support and guaranteed income for people experiencing homelessness.” Trials, 25(1), p.290.
CHAPTERS
Maria L. Gallo and Kevin F. Adler. 2014. “Facebook Fatigue?” Chapter in An Education in Facebook: Higher Education and the World’s Largest Social Network. Edited by Mike Kent and Tama Leaver. New York, NY: Routledge.
Kevin F. Adler. 2010. “Social Capital after a Disaster: A Case Study of the 2008 Flood in Iowa.” Chapter in Community Disaster Recovery and Resiliency: Exploring Global Opportunities & Challenges. Edited by DeMond Miller and Jason David Rivera. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
CV – Available upon request.