Top Research Papers on Homelessness

In the last forty years there has been a proliferation of data and studies on what can be called, in a Foucauldian way, the “economy of homelessness” – resulting in the “knowledge of all the processes related to population in its larger sense” (Foucault, 2000, pp.216-217). Research has been undertaken on the most disparate topics, ranging from the causes of homelessness, and gender differences amongst homeless people, to very specific accounts on the housing stock, or, for instance, the health and mental conditions of homeless and vagrant individuals. However, despite the variety of topics and...

American School Counselor Association (ASCA) Position School counselors recognize that homelessness/displacement may greatly affect the whole child, encompassing mental, physical, social/emotional and academic development. School counselors help to identify students who are experiencing homelessness. As social justice advocates, it is school counselors’ duty to recognize and work with students around their specific strengths. School counselors collaborate with community stakeholders to connect students and their families who are experiencing homelessness to community supports, work to remove b...

This chapter assesses the effects of homelessness on public health. Homelessness has the power to move people to action like few other issues. Unfortunately, efforts to tackle homelessness have fallen short. Historically, making housing contingent on sobriety and employment has imperiled millions. Encouragingly, Housing First—a program that provides housing and support services without requiring employment or pretreatment for mental health conditions and substance use disorders—has started to gain traction. The program has led to improvements in housing stability, reduced hospitalizations and ...

The author, acknowledging the reality of homeless persons in most communities, explores the meanings and dynamics of homelessness, and the need to recognize the variety of participants needing to be recognized in appreciating the complexity of this segment of society. He raises the issue of how pastoral caregivers become involved in providing authentic care to this sub-culture and offers examples from his own experiences as a volunteer chaplain in the Salvation Army Corps.

Analysis that links the phenomenon of homelessness to wider debates about the changing social and economic environment remains relatively underdeveloped. This important book brings together contemporary debates and empirical research in order to explore the nature, experience and impact of social change in the context of risks and uncertainties.

The goal of this special issue of WORK is intended to highlight the specific needs of homeless and refugee populations, and emerging programs developed to address these needs.

American School Counselor Association (ASCA) Position School counselors recognize that homelessness/displacement may greatly affect the whole child, encompassing mental, physical, social/emotional and academic development. School counselors help to identify students who are experiencing homelessness. As social justice advocates, it is school counselors’ duty to recognize and work with students around their specific strengths. School counselors collaborate with community stakeholders to connect students and their families who are experiencing homelessness to community supports, work to remove b...

This book presents an unflinching investigation of homelessness in the United States―a problem that has been with us since the arrival of the first English settlers nearly 400 years ago. The terms historically used to describe them include "bums," "hoboes," "migrants," "street people," "transients," "tramps," and "vagrants." Just as varied as the words we have used to describe them are the reasons many people have found themselves living in the land of opportunity without permanent residence. The book considers homelessness and its distinctive character in three periods of American history: ...

It is no secret homelessness is a significant issue for Santa Cruz County (SCCO). What may not be fully understood is the amount of time, money, and energy that has been devoted to the search for solutions. Even with all the efforts, very little progress has been made in reducing the number of individuals and families affected by homelessness. Why? The Grand Jury identified five main reasons the homeless problem persists.

Individuals experiencing homelessness undergo limited opportunity for meaningful occupational engagement, from ability to safely engage in activities of daily living (ADLs) to leisure and work. The ability to participate in desired occupations is restricted by many external factors, including local and national policy, shelter and health systems, and available community resources. Individuals experiencing homelessness also manage significant personal factors, such as chronic health conditions, histories of trauma, and limited economic and social supports, that influence their ability to naviga...

An online learning resource aimed at community health professionals who work with homeless people has been launched by the Queen's Nursing Institute. The learning package contains six modules on.

Abstract Homeless people have been found to exhibit high levels of personal disability (mental illness, substance abuse), extreme degrees of social estrangement, and deep poverty. Each of these conditions poses unique housing problems, which are discussed here. In the 1980s, the number of poor people has increased and the supply of low‐income housing has dwindled; these trends provide the background against which the homelessness problem has unfolded. Homelessness is indeed a housing problem, first and foremost, but the characteristics of the homeless are such as to make their housing problems...

County Behavioral Health departments work diligently to assist homeless individuals living with mental health issues and SUD, regularly providing services such as counseling, case management, crisis treatment and medication evaluation and support.

• Learn why we describe those without shelter as “homeless” • Learn how people experience homelessness, what it feels like • Learn the history of, and trends in homelessness in the US, and measures of it • Learn how to count people experiencing homelessness • Learn why people live on the streets even in affluent societies with social services • Assess conflicting explanations for the rise in homelessness • Assess the impact of COVID-19 on homelessness • Learn about homelessness in your city and Washington, DC • Examine ways in which societies criminalize the homeless, and legal remedies • Eval...

The authors of three examinations of the problem all see the homelessness phenomenon chiefly through the prism of the housing market, rather than focusing on the personal pathologies of the homeless themselves. The three diverge, however, as to the role which government intervention has played in causing the crisis or should play in solving it. James D. Wright argues there has been insufficient public intervention and subsidy; William Tucker contends that intervention causes homelessness; Charles Hoch and Robert A. Slayton imply that a less regulated market may prevent homelessness, if not nec...

Abstract The evidence from a survey of one free-standing squatter settlement on the Witwatersrand suggests that squatting in the south of Johanneshurg is not primarily a result of the influx of rural immigrants since the abolition of influx control laws in 1986. Although most of the squatters in the sample were born in rural a reas, the vast majority of rural immigrants had urbanised during the 1970s. The timing of the urbanisation of the rural-born squatters, as well as the reasons that they gave for moving to the Witwatersrand, correspond to the findings of other studies on social change in ...

Homelessness is an issue which has emerged as an important one, locally and nationally, over the last six years in a classic “agenda setting” fashion. Public awareness has increased, and public policies developed (at every level of the political system), as the number of homeless persons has increased, and changed character to include more young people, women and children, and intact families. This awareness has been stimulated by events as different as the Community for Creative Non-violence in Washington, D.C. inviting members of Congress to join them in sleeping overnight on outside vents a...

The complexity of functioning of the contemporary city does leaves behind certain aspects unregistered in the network of urban life. Millions of Indians are unemployed or underemployed. Ingenuity and tenacity are the hallmarks of urban workers, who carry out a remarkable multitude of tasks and sell an incredible variety of foods, trinkets, and services, all under difficult conditions. Many of the urban poor are migrant laborers carrying head loads of bricks and earth up rickety bamboo scaffolding at construction sites, while their small children play about at the edge of excavations or huddle ...

ABSTRACT This paper reviews the literature on understanding homelessness. It criticizes approaches that ignore, distort or diminish the humanity of homeless people, or else, add little to our understanding of that humanity. In particular, it rejects what it calls “epidemiological” approaches, which deny the possibility of agency for homeless people, insofar as those approaches view the situation of those people largely as a “social fact”, to be explained in terms of causal variables or “risk factors” of different kinds. It evaluates the concept of homelessness pathways as a way of making sense...

Established in 2001, the legal clinic was opened to provide legal assistance to people who are homeless and the risk of homelessness. Clinic lawyers also deal in the social justice issues. The clinic has a total of about 150 lawyers. Legal services are provided at crisis accommodation shelters.