Regions

Homelessness is a global challenge.

The United Nations Human Settlements Program estimates that 1.1 billion people live in inadequate housing, and the best data available suggest that more than 100 million people have no housing at all.

Search for country-specific resources

Leaving Homelessness Behind: Housing Decisions Among Families Exiting Shelter

Because homelessness assistance programs are designed to help families, it is important for policymakers and practitioners to understand how families experiencing homelessness make housing decisions, particularly when they decide not to use available services. This study explores those decisions using in-depth qualitative interviews with 80 families recruited in shelters across four sites approximately six months after they...

The Dilemmas of Frontline Staff Working With the Homeless: Housing First, Discretion, and the Task Environment

Carissa van den Berk-Clark

This article examines staff discretion in permanent supportive housing facilities run by a nonprofit agency claiming to use a Housing First approach. Field observation, archival data, and individual and group interviews with staff and clients were examined to better understand agency processes involved in intake, sanctions, and disposal of clients to evaluate Housing First fidelity. In their day-to-day interactions with...

Universal Screening for Homelessness and Risk for Homelessness in the Veterans Health Administration

Ann Elizabeth Montgomery

We examined data for all veterans who completed the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) national homelessness screening instrument between October 1, 2012, and January 10, 2013. Among veterans who were not engaged with the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) homeless system and presented for primary care services, the prevalence of recent housing instability or homelessness was 0.9% and homelessness risk was 1.2%....

Human Trafficking Prevalence and Child Welfare Risk Factors Among Homeless Youth

Debra Schilling Wolfe

Johanna K.P. Greeson

Sarah Wasch

Daniel Treglia

The Field Center completed a three-city study as part of a larger initiative by Covenant House International to research human trafficking among homeless youth encompassing nearly 1,000 young people across 13 cities. Of those interviewed, twenty percent were victims of human trafficking, including seventeen percent who were victims of sex trafficking and six percent who were victims of labor trafficking. Fourteen percent...

Missed Opportunities: LGBTQ Youth Homelessness in America

The second in a series of Research-to-Impact briefs by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago on understanding and addressing youth homelessness. Missed Opportunities: LGBTQ Youth Homelessness in America highlights research related to the specific experiences of young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) and face homelessness. The study learned that, compared to heterosexual and...

Discussion Paper: Ending Homelessness and the Right to Housing

Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness

The purpose of this discussion paper is for Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH) to present their opinions and position regarding the right to housing. In this paper, the CAEH discusses housing rights in Canada, including the Canadian government's recognition of the right to adequate housing – with guidance from The United Nations human rights framework. In addition, the organization presents the right to adequate...

A transitional housing program for older foster youth: How do youth fare after exiting?

Sonja Lenz-Rashid

This study is an outcome evaluation of Bay Area Youth Center's Real Alternatives for Adolescents (RAFA) transitional housing program in Hayward, California. Methods: This study examined a sample of 55 youth ages 16 to 21 who lived in the RAFA transitional program between 2007 and 2015. About 96% were in residing in stable housing at follow up, there were low rates of parenting before age 22 (41% of females and 16% of males)...

Danger Zones and Stepping Stones: Phase Two

Sarah McCoy

The first phase, in 2015-16, involved a qualitative exploration of young people’s experiences of temporary living between periods of stable accommodation. Based on the findings of that research, Depaul UK proposed a new approach to assessing temporary living circumstances – using the Danger Zones and Stepping Stones Model. To further the understanding of young people’s experiences and enhance the thinking behind the Model, in...

Working with street children

Working with Street Children is intended particularly for street children educators, social educators, child rehabilitation project managers, those in charge of the law and the representatives of urban public order. It hopes to reply to the need for dialogue expressed in a questionnaire sent in 1991 to some 180 project managers throughout Africa, Latin America, and Asia. It gathers information on education and the way that it...

Still Hungry and Homeless in College

This is the largest national survey assessing the basic needs security of university students. It is the Wisconsin HOPE Lab’s 3rd national survey. This year the Lab reported on 43,000 students at 66 institutions in 20 states and the District of Columbia, which included over 20,000 students at 35 4-year colleges and universities, as well as students at community colleges. Overall, the study concluded 36 percent of college...

Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities: Phase One Study Findings

In September 2016, the Center for Social Innovation launched SPARC (Supporting Partnerships for Anti- Racist Communities) to understand and respond to racial inequities in homelessness, through research and action. Through an ambitious mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative) study, the SPARC team documented high rates of homelessness among people of color and began to map their pathways into and barriers to exit from...

Protect Tenants, Prevent Homelessness

While many communities across the country are working to end homelessness, too few have adopted legal protections to help renters find, and stay in, housing. This report explores the links between housing instability and homelessness as well as the laws that can reduce housing instability. While increasing the availability of affordable housing is a necessary component of ending homelessness, it may not be sufficient if low-...

Housing people who are homeless in Glasgow

Scottish Housing Regulator

This report sets out the findings from our review of how effectively Glasgow City Council and Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) house people who are homeless. A main finding from the report is that people who are experiencing homelessness are not being housed quickly enough. The report includes recommendations such as setting clear objectives, keeping in contact with clients throughout the housing process, and more.

Fitting Stories: Outreach Worker Strategies for Housing Homeless Clients

Curtis Smith

Leon Anderson

Social service outreach workers serving homeless populations exemplify Michael Lipsky’s concept of street-level bureaucrats who exert considerable discretionary power in the performance of their roles. In their efforts to qualify their homeless clients for housing, outreach workers create “fitting stories” that present their clients as qualified for support within the social service contexts that provide housing services. We...

Supportive Housing: Single Site Model

In a Supportive Housing Single Site model all units within a single property or building provide housing for a range of supportive housing populations including people experiencing homelessness, persons with disabilities (including Olmstead populations and other at-risk populations). Supportive Housing Single Site models provide opportunity for independent living for supportive housing populations combined with supportive...

Report on Homelessness

The Scottish Parliament

We recommend that a Scottish style Housing First approach is implemented in Scotland. We believe that it represents an important piece of the jigsaw which, together with other approaches, would provide for a successful person-centered approach to tackling homelessness. As our report shows successfully reducing homelessness requires that a person's immediate housing needs are addressed alongside any underlying issues that led...

WHAT WOULD IT TAKE? Youth Across Canada Speak Out on Youth Homelessness Prevention

The What Would it Take study asked young people with lived experience of homelessness: what would it take to prevent youth homelessness in Canada? Between July 2017 and January 2018, A Way Home Canada and the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness consulted with youth across Canada to ask: 1) What would have prevented your homelessness? 2) What programs, policies, services, and supports are needed to prevent youth homelessness...

Impact of a New York City Supportive Housing Program on Housing Stability and Preventable Health Care among Homeless Families

In this article, the authors captured housing events and health care service utilization during 2 years prior to the first program eligibility date (baseline) and 2 years post-baseline. They performed sequence analysis to measure housing stability and compared housing stability and preventable ED visits and hospitalizations between program participants (treatment group) and eligible applicants not placed in the program (...

Third Overview of Housing Exclusion in Europe

Fondation Abbé Pierre

FEANTSA

Since 2015, FEANTSA and the Fondation Abbé Pierre have released a yearly Overview of Housing Exclusion in Europe. These annual reports look at the latest Eurostat data (EU-SILC) and assess EU countries' capacity to adequately house their populations. This 2018 report reveals how millions of Europeans face housing exclusion on a daily basis as well as a dramatic picture of increasing homelessness across most of the EU – in...

Using Housing First in Integrated Homelessness Strategies

Nicholas Pleace

This report explores Housing First in relation to the evidence base on services designed to end homelessness among single people (i.e. lone adults) with support needs. Some attention is given to prevention and relief services, but this report is concerned with services for those single homeless people who require support as well as housing. The report does not encompass services for homeless families. The report has four...

« first
‹ previous
…
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
…
next ›
last »

Understanding Homelessness

IGH Framework

Strategy & Planning

Program Models

Evaluation

Using Data in Homelessness Work

About Us

The Institute of Global Homelessness