By Eric Lindberg
It’s safe to say Benjamin Henwood is having a good year.
The assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work recently secured several large federal grants to explore issues among homeless youth and older adults, is helping oversee the annual homelessness count in Los Angeles and is emerging as a leading expert as the social work profession takes on the grand challenge of homelessness on a national level.
That wasn’t exactly the plan when he left the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee with a master’s degree in philosophy, nor 15 years ago when he decided to leave the bustle and stress of a stock-trading job in New York in pursuit of a career in social work.
But now Henwood finds himself at the epicenter of a broad movement to reconceive how society should address one of its greatest ills.
“Never before has the public and political interest been as focused on this topic, so it all seems to be coming together,” he said. “We are at a tipping point, especially in Los Angeles but also throughout the country, that something has to be done. We need change.”