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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.

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"... And a Suitable Living Environment": The Failure of Housing Programs to Deliver on Neighborhood Quality

Sandra Newman

Ann Schnare

This paper seeks to discover whether the success of housing programs correlates to the surrounding neighborhood (HRC). This article evaluates the relative performance of housing programs in terms of neighborhood quality. We profile neighborhood characteristics surrounding assisted housing units and assess the direction of assisted housing policy in light of this information. The analysis relies on a housing census database we...

Determinants of Behavior in Homeless and Low-Income Housed Preschool Children

This resource discusses issues surrounding the development of behaviors in low-income and homeless children. Researchers sought to describe the characteristics of homeless and low-income preschool-aged children, and to identify family and environmental determinants of their behavior. An unmatched case-control design was used to recruit a sample of sheltered homeless families and a comparison group of low-income housed...

Substance Use and Access to Health Care and Addiction Treatment among Homeless and Vulnerably Housed Persons in Three Canadian Cities

We examined the prevalence of substance use disorders among homeless and vulnerably housed persons in three Canadian cities and its association with unmet health care needs and access to addiction treatment using baseline data from the Health and Housing in Transition Study. In 2009, 1191 homeless and vulnerably housed persons were recruited in Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa, Canada. Interviewer administered questionnaires...

Estimating Homelessness: Towards a Methodology for Counting the Homeless in Canada (Executive Summary)

T. Pressini

L. MacDonald

David J. Hulchanski

This article serves to show the progression of counting measures in Canada, and the relationship between the definition of homelessness and our ability to measure it. Per the article: Counting the homeless has proven to be a arduous task. Since the early 1980s American activists, government officials and social researchers have produced estimates of the size of the homeless population which have ranged anywhere from 250,000...

5. Immigrants & Refugees

Peer Community Helps Homeless Drug Abusers With Mental Illnesses Reduce Drug Use

Neil Swan

Researchers at the Center for Therapeutic Community Research (CTCR) in New York City, one of NIDA's major multidisciplinary research centers, are studying a treatment program they devised to meet the complex psychiatric and substance abuse needs of homeless substance abusers who are also mentally ill. They have designed a "modified therapeutic community (TC)" that provides 24-hour-a-day supervised residential treatment for 12...

The Impacts of Supportive Housing on Neighborhoods and Neighbors in Denver

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has conducted an analysis of the impacts of supportive housing programs on neighborhood property values and crime rates. Supportive housing programs are programs that are designed to provide supportive services in conjunction with some form of housing assistance—be it small group homes, larger institutions, or apartment-based living. In commissioning this study, HUD was...

Implementing Assertive Community Treatment Programs in Rural Settings

The authors present a controlled evaluation of a rural adaptation of the assertive community treatment (ACT) model for clients with serious and persistent mental illness (SPMI). Four rural community mental health settings adopted an ACT model, while a fifth site blended ACT principles with those of the Rhinelander model, another approach to case management for persons with SPMI. A broad array of client and system outcomes...

Mental Disorder and Comorbidity Among Runaway and Homeless Adolescents

This study focuses on co-occuring disorders among homeless and runaway youth, in four mid-western cities. Its purpose was to investigate prevalence of mental disorder and comorbidity among homeless and runaway adolescents in small to medium sized cities in four Midwestern states. The study presents lifetime, 12-month prevalence, and comorbidity rates for five mental disorders (conduct disorder, major depressive episode,...

Housing for Infectious TB Patients Who are Homeless: An Alternative Housing Program

C. Turner

M. Chambers

The resurgence of tuberculosis (TB) in the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s has been well documented. This problem was particularly severe in cities such as New York where the TB case rate nearly tripled over a 15-year period from the late worsening social and economic conditions, most notably homelessness. In fact in one study of 224 1970s to the early 1990s. Among the factors contributing to this resurgence were...

Influencing Affordable Housing Decisions in Your Community

For people with disabilities, their advocates, families, and service providers, trying to access affordable housing in the community is a difficult task. This is especially true today. Reductions in federal funding for affordable housing programs, and changes in how these affordable housing programs operate, are affecting who will benefit from these programs in the future. In the face of pressures to balance the federal...

Obtaining Representative Samples of Homeless Persons: A Two-City Study

A three-step method for obtaining probability samples of homeless adults across diverse settings over large geographical areas was applied in two cities. Brief surveys determined that most homeless people (71-73%) had used a shelter in the prior year and a sizable additional group (18-20%) had used a food program, but not a shelter. Much smaller numbers were found at various in- and out-patient agencies. Less than 1% of the...

The Long Term Effects of Housing Assistance on Self-Sufficiency

Sandra Newman

Joseph Harkness

This study investigated the effects of housing assistance received by children between the ages of 10 and 16 at some point during the period 1968-1982 on four outcomes experienced in adulthood: (1) welfare receipt between ages 20-27; (2) earnings above poverty between ages 25-27; (3) total earnings between 25-27; and (4) educational attainment at age 27. The impacts of public housing and privately owned assisted housing built...

Not a Solo Act: Creating Successful Partnerships to Develop and Operate Supportive Housing

Supportive housing is not a solo act. It brings together three very different disciplines – housing development, supportive services, and property management – and therefore often requires a collaboration between two or more lead organizations, as well as coordination with tenant representatives and other parties. As resources and funding become more limited, collaborative relationships are becoming the most efficient way to...

Evaluation of a Homeless Mentally Ill Outreach Program: Differential Short-Term Effects

Deborah Bybee

Carol Mowbray

Evan Cohen

Previously published research on interventions for persons who are homeless and mentally ill has exhibited marked limitations in attrition, sample sizes, generalizability and outcome measures. This report presents results from an outreach and linkage project wherein the research design has better addressed these limitations. Successful outcomes in terms of the number housed were documented. However, significant changes in...

Preventing Recurrent Homelessness Among Mentally Ill Men: A Critical Time Intervention After Discharge from a Shelter

This study examined a strategy to prevent homelessness among individuals with severe mental illness by providing a bridge between institutional and community care. Ninety-six men with severe mental illness who were entering community housing from a shelter institution were randomized to receive 9 months of a "critical time" intervention plus usual services or usual services only. The primary analysis compared the mean number...

Respondent-Driven Sampling: A New Approach to the Study of Hidden Populations

Douglas Heckathorn

A population is hidden when no sampling frame exists and public acknowledgment of membership in the population is potentially threatening. Accessing such populations is difficult because standard probability sampling methods produce low response rates and responses that lack candor. This article introduces a new variant of chain-referral, respondent-driven sampling, that employs a dual system of structured incentives to...

Effects of Poverty, Hunger and Homelessness on Children and Youth

The nation’s economic crisis has deeply affected the lives of millions of Americans. Skyrocketing foreclosures and job layoffs have pulled the rug out from under many families, particularly those living in low-income communities. Deepening poverty is inextricably linked with rising levels of homelessness and food insecurity/hunger for many Americans and children are particularly affected by these conditions. Find out a...

Making Room: The Economics of Homelessness

Brendan O'Flaherty

Mentally ill people turned out of institutions, crack-cocaine use on the rise, more poverty, public housing a shambles: as attempts to explain homelessness multiply so do the homeless--and we still don't know why. The first full-scale economic analysis of homelessness, Making Room provides answers quite unlike those offered so far by sociologists and pundits. It is a story about markets, not about the bad habits or...

15. Why Don’t You Just Get a Job? Homeless Youth, Social Exclusion and Employment Training

Stephen Gaetz

Bill O’Grady

In this chapter, we ask a key question: What is the role of employment training programs in helping young people move off the streets? More and more communities struggle with how to enhance the employability of homeless youth, often knowing that traditional employment training programs and supports have not always successfully engaged the most marginal of youth populations. Our understanding of youth homelessness and...

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