This presidential address uses an autoethnographic approach to social problems to give the audience an opportunity to reflect upon the ways in which social problems exist, morph, wane, and return. Looking back over the social problems we have encountered over our lives as individuals and as social scientists, how might we work not only to identify but solve problems? Social problems are difficult to solve, since problems change with the times as well as with the social, political, and economic climate. The past is the present and the present is the past. The fact that the same problems reemerge time and time again shows they are significant enough to require not only our attention but also potential solutions. We should prepare our students to identify those problems that are most compelling and persistent, encouraging them and ourselves to apply a confluence of sociology, social work, economics, political science, urban studies, history in a search for solutions. We must move from the sidelines to participate not only in the study of society and its social problems but in finding solutions.