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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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Management of chronic kidney disease and dialysis in homeless persons
TiinaPodymow
JeffTurnbull
The Ottawa Inner City Health Project (ICHP) is a shelter-based health project for homeless individuals with complex health needs. The project includes shelter-based care units and a total of 122 beds, allowing homeless patients to live in-shelter; it employs support workers, nurses and a doctor to help patients manage medications, transportation, diet and hygiene.11-13 We present and characterize a case series of homeless...
Psychosocial Behaviour of Adult Homeless People According to Age
VictorBadea
MarianaBadea
This study aims to identify the relation between homeless people's age and behaviour, thus revealing useful behavioural markers. We divided participants in three age groups (20-35, 36-50 and 51-65 years old). The considered variables were: self-image, emotional state, way of relating to the future, group affiliation, alcohol consumption, resort to other social services, formulated complaints, motivation for change, tendency...
Characteristics of Violent Deaths Among Homeless People in Maryland, 2003–2011
Jennifer L.Stanley
Alexandra V.Jansson
Adebola A.Akinyemi
Clifford S.Mitchell
Homelessness is a continuing challenge facing the U.S. A point-in-time survey in 2013 estimated about 610,042 people were homeless nationally on a given night, and of those, about 8,200 were located in Maryland. Morbidity and mortality rates are higher among those experiencing homelessness than for housed individuals. Physical and mental health conditions may develop and worsen through exposure to communicable disease,...
Characteristics of adherence to methadone maintenance treatment over a 15-year period among homeless adults experiencing mental illness
MiladParpouchi
AkmMoniruzzaman
Stefanie N.Rezansoff
AngelaRussolillo
Julian M.Somers
Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) has important protective effects related to reduced illicit opioid use, infectious disease transmission, and overdose mortality. Adherence to MMT has not been examined among homeless people. We measured MMT adherence and reported relevant characteristics among homeless adults experiencing mental illness in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The level of adherence to MMT was very low...
A Primary Care–Public Health Partnership Addressing Homelessness, Serious Mental Illness, and Health Disparities
Lara Carson Weinstein
Marianna D. LaNoue
James D. Plumb
Hannah King
Brianna Stein
Sam Tsemberis
Background: People with histories of homelessness and serious mental illness experience profound health disparities. Housing First is an evidenced-based practice that is working to end homelessness for these individuals through a combination of permanent housing and community-based supports. Methods: The Jefferson Department of Family and Community Medicine and a Housing First agency, Pathways to Housing-PA, has formed a...
Housing Stability Among Homeless Individuals With Serious Mental Illness Participating In Housing First Programs
Carol Pearson
Ann Elizabeth Montgomery
Gretchen Locke
This article presents findings from an exploratory study of three programs using the Housing First approach to provide permanent supportive housing for single, homeless adults with serious mental illness and often co-occurring substance-related disorders. This approach provides direct, or nearly direct, access to housing that is intended to be permanent without requiring sobriety or psychiatric treatment. Findings from the...
Moving from Fact to Policy: Housing is HIV Prevention and Health Care
Virginia Shubert
Nancy Bernstine
A growing body of empirical evidence shows strong correlations between improved housing status and reduced HIV risk behaviors, improved access to health care for persons living with HIV/AIDS, and better health outcomes. These findings support the provision of housing assistance for low-income persons living with HIV/AIDS: as a basic human right; as a necessary component of systems to enable individuals to manage their HIV/...
Homelessness Prevention: The Effect of a Shallow Rent Subsidy Program on Housing Outcomes among People with HIV or AIDS
Lisa K. Dasinger
Richard Speiglman
This paper presents results of an evaluation of Project Independence (PI), a shallow rent subsidy program with services coordination support for very low income people with HIV or AIDS who live in Alameda County in the San Francisco Bay Area. By providing a small rental subsidy to eligible individuals and their families who are already stably housed, the philosophy of the program is to prevent homelessness before it starts....
Rethinking Homelessness Prevention among Persons with Serious Mental Illness
Ann Elizabeth Montgomery
Stephen Metraux
Dennis Culhane
During recent years, the need to consider effective and innovative ways to prevent and end homelessness among individuals with serious mental illness has been abetted by an increased and more sophisticated understanding of the composition of the homeless population, the emergence of evidence-based practices to address homelessness, and the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This article summarizes the...
Healthcare Experiences of the Homeless
Bonnie Nickasch
Suzanne K. Marnocha
The objective of this study was to explore the healthcare experiences of homeless individuals and inform providers of the barriers created by the situation of homelessness. This was a qualitative research study using a grounded theory approach. The sample included homeless individuals older than 18 years living in northeastern Wisconsin. The research provided rich insight into the healthcare experiences of the homeless. Five...
Perceptions of Quality of Life And Disability in Homeless Persons with Schizophrenia And Persons With Schizophrenia Living In Non-Institutional Housing
A. G. van der Plas
 H. W. Hoek
 D. van Hoeken
  E. Valencia
 A. M. van Hemert
Homelessness is common in persons with schizophrenia. It is unclear how housing conditions and homelessness affect their quality of life and their disability. Seventy-six not-homeless and 50 homeless persons with schizophrenia were assessed using the World Health Organization’s Quality of Life – short version (WHOQOL-Bref) and Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS-II). Univariate comparisons of the two groups were made for...
Predictors of Homelessness among Older Adults in New York City
Marybeth Shinn
Jamie Gottlieb
Jessica L. Wett
Ajay Bahl
Arnold Cohen
Deborah Baron Ellis
We interviewed 61 housed and 79 homeless adults aged 55 and over about disability; economic, human and social capital; and stressful life events prior to becoming homeless. Over half of the homeless group had previously led conventional lives. Human capital, social capital and life events were more important than disability or economic capital in predicting homelessness. The homeless adults were younger, more likely to be...
Characteristics and Predictors of Frequent Utilization of Emergency Services
Pat Milbrett
Margo Halm
Frequent users were commonly female, 35 years old, white, single, unemployed, living alone, with private insurance/Medicaid and a primary care physician. Top chief complaints were abdominal pain, headache, chest pain, low back pain, and lower extremity pain. However, a Poisson regression found that the following characteristics were associated with a higher number of ED visits: male, non-Black race, part-time employment,...
Facing Eviction: Homelessness Prevention for Low-Income Tenant Households
Linda Wood-Boyle
The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that a minimum-wage worker would need to work 140 hours per week, 52 weeks per year, to be able to reasonably afford a two-bedroom apartment in the Greater Boston area, for example. After years of waiting and navigating a seemingly endless maze of bureaucracy, some low-income households may be lucky enough to receive an affordable rent subsidy (also known as subsidized...
Homelessness Prevention Research Brief
Marybeth Shinn
Homelessness prevention can be approached in two ways. One – the more enduring path to ending homelessness – is to fix the systemic problems that cause it: social inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity, and a failure of the social safety net. These are broad social changes, and while they are not likely to happen soon, efforts to address them will certainly contribute to reducing homelessness. The focus of prevention...
Rental Housing Subsidies and Homelessness Research Brief
Jill Khadduri
Homelessness is fundamentally a housing affordability problem, and for most individuals and families the pathway out of homelessness is to return to the same type of housing other households occupy in the community. Even though they are not formally part of the homeless services system, “mainstream” assisted housing programs such as Housing Choice Vouchers, Section 8 housing developments, and public housing are vital to...
United States Interagency Council on Homelessness
The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness coordinates and catalyzes the federal response to homelessness, working in close partnership with Cabinet Secretaries and other senior leaders across our 19 federal member agencies. By organizing and supporting leaders such as Governors, Mayors, Continuum of Care leaders, and other local officials, USICH drives action to achieve the goals of the federal strategic plan to prevent...
National Alliance to End Homelessness
The Alliance was founded in 1983 by a group of concerned citizens determined to meet the emergency needs of the nation’s then-emerging population of homeless people. By 1987, it was clear that homelessness was not a temporary crisis, but that it had taken root. At that time, the organization turned its attention to more permanent solutions and grew to a national network of over 10,000 providers, public agencies, and private...
Conceptualizing homelessness in rural Appalachia: Understanding contextual factors relevant to community mental health practice.
Sherry R. Shamblin
Natalie F. Williams
Jason R. Bellaw
Considering the complex mental health needs of many homeless individuals and the unique features of rural Appalachia, community mental health practitioners who work in the region need to be equipped with an understanding of the issues related to housing insecurity. To assist, we propose a model that demonstrates the interplay of various regional, cultural, and individual factors as they relate to housing insecurity. We arrive...
Center for Evidence-based Solutions to Homelessness
The Center for Evidence-based Solutions to Homelessness is a new resource to help prevent and end homelessness. Their experts offer insights informed by research to assist communities as they plan and provide homelessness services. Abt Associates and the National Alliance to End Homelessness have partnered on a key feature of the Center’s work, documenting the evidence base on homelessness. With the launch of the Center’s...