Supportive Housing for Addicted,Incarcerated Homeless Adults

ABSTRACT

Homeless populations often suffer from mental illness, substance abuse, and criminality. Interventions, such as supportive housing, can have positive impacts, although benefits can be limited. This study examined outcomes for clients (N = 102) of a new supportive housing intervention. Use of formal treatment, jail contact, and community stability were compared pre- and post-housing. Jail bookings and residential substance abuse treatment significantly declined post-housing, while clients improved in income level, access to food, and housing stability. Results from official justice and treatment system data suggest that supportive housing can lead to significant changes. Future research is necessary to understand the relationship between client characteristics and outcomes.     

The impact of religiousness, spirituality, and social support on psychological well-being among older adults in rural areas

This paper presents the results of a study on the impact of spirituality, religiousness, and social support on the psychological well-being among rural elderly. With a rural community sample of 215 older adults, hierarchical regression analyses found significant associations between dimensions of spirituality/religiousness, social support, and psychological well-being, with spirituality/religiousness inversely related to depression and social support, positively related to life satisfaction. Findings of this study suggest that practitioners need to develop programs or services that are congruent with religious/spiritual beliefs and practices in order to better enhance the psychosocial well-being and improve the quality of life among older persons in rural areas.     

Contested Housing Landscapes? Social Inclusion,Deinstitutionalisation and Housing Policy in Australia

Deinstitutionalisation is represented as a major step toward social inclusion through the resettlement of disabled people residing in segregated large‐scale institutions into community‐based homes. By promoting the right to live in ordinary community residential settings, deinstitutionalisation fundamentally changes both the support services and housing arrangements of former institutional residents. In Australia, as in many western countries, debates on community care have tended to focus on the location and nature of non‐housing supports for people leaving dependent care. This focus, however, overlooks the fact that deinstitutionalisation involves a radical rehousing of people in care. This paper explores the character and implications of deinstitutionalisation in Australia as a rehousing process. It is based on a recent national research project that has examined the housing futures of people with intellectual disabilities who have been, or will be, deinstitutionalised. The paper considers the increasingly divergent socio‐political perspectives that have emerged in recent discussions about social inclusion, institutional reform and independent living and their implications for housing and community care policies.     

Overview of evidence-based practice with older adults and their families

Over the past decade, there has been tremendous growth in the movement to enhance the delivery of quality services through the use of evidence-based interventions. While a growing number of reviews have examined the effectiveness of pharmacological interventions for older adults, few have examined the status of psychosocial interventions for the older population. The purpose of this special volume is to increase researchers' and practitioners' knowledge of evidence-based treatments for older adults and their family members. To this end, a thorough review of the extant research on psychosocial interventions available to address the varied health, mental health/cognitive, and social role challenges faced by older adults and family caregivers is provided.     

Women,Health and Housing Assistance: Implications in an Emerging Era of Housing Provision

Women and the households that they head are over‐represented among the most economically and socially disadvantaged households in Australia. Recent changes in the provision of housing assistance for low income households in Australia have distinct implications for women and this paper examines the implications of these changes. Shifting the emphasis in housing assistance away from publicly provided and rent‐controlled housing to direct subsidisation of rents for private tenants has important, largely negative, consequences for the health, affordability and security of housing for many women. This situation is made worse given the current housing affordability crisis in Australia; a crisis that extends across all private housing tenures.     

Deregulation, markets and the 1988 Housing Act

This paper looks at the deregulation of private sector rents. It examines two recent articles on this topic published in Social Policy and Administration, which take very different positions on the need for and desirability of rent deregulation, one very pro-market the other very anti-market in outlook. It is argued here that both articles hold idealized views of ‘the market’, though for different reasons, and that a less partisan view of the arguments and the evidence would suggest that deregulation of relettings, as provided by the Housing Act 1988, will be neither so significantly beneficial nor so deleterious in its effects as these two articles respectively would suggest.     

A conceptual framework for differential use of mediation and family therapy interventions with older adults and their families

The purpose of this article is to present a family-centered approach to working with older adults. This framework utilizes a differential use of family therapy and therapeutic mediation theoretical concepts and skills. This provides an effective approach to conceptualizing and intervening with these often complex situations regarding the decision-making processes related to care of older members. Family-centered mediators/clinicians must be skilled in both models to understand and intervene in the challenging issues presented by families. A case example is included in the article to illustrate the framework.     

Survivors' pensions and their impact on the Brazilian labour market

In many countries the regulations governing survivors' pensions were established in periods when female labour market participation was lower than at present. However, the current trend in many Latin American countries is for growing levels of female labour participation. In Brazil, where there are no restrictions on the concurrent receipt of retirement and survivors' pensions, and where until recently lifelong pensions could be obtained without any conditionality, not only has the accumulation of such benefits grown, but there are indications that these rules have had a negative impact on women's labour market participation. Analysis of the case of Brazil shows the need for social security regulations to adapt to labour market changes, and underlines the need to acknowledge that social security regulations can actually have an impact on the labour market.     

Poverty, Housing Niches, and Health in the United States

Drawing on psychological, health, and social science literature, a housing niche model is developed that focuses on (a) housing markets and other societal processes that constrain residential choice, (b) effects of residential environments on health and access to human and social capital, and (c) family dynamic effects on health and the intergenerational consequences of particular housing niches for future health and housing choices. The model requires the examination of cumulative risks, mediating and moderating processes, and the use of multilevel statistical models. The health consequences of existing housing policies are explored and future directions for research and policy suggested .     

Young People, Housing Benefit and the Risk Society

This paper draws on debates about the risk society to examine the impact of the single room rent, a restriction in the housing benefit scheme that applies to single people under 25 living in privately rented housing. Drawing on qualitative interviews in six localities in England, the paper examines young people's ability to gain access to and afford privately rented accommodation while receiving housing benefit. It argues that the single room rent restriction has not only cut their housing benefit entitlement but also created more uncertainty for young people. Consequently, it has enhanced rather than ameliorated the risks faced by young people on low incomes in the private rental housing market.     

Housing,Demographic Change and the Private Rental Sector

Housing policy and provision in Australia are primarily oriented towards meeting the needs of the traditional nuclear family household. Households who cannot afford to buy their own home and are not eligible for public housing have no alternative but to rent in the private sector. Many of these households are single headed, groups, unemployed or on low-incomes. However, even in the private rental sector family households are favoured by landlords and estate agents and gain access to the better standard accommodation. Flexible and innovative policies in the public sector are urgently needed to meet the housing needs of the growing number of non-nuclear family households.     

Culture,Place of Origin,and Service Delivery for Latino Older Adult Immigrants: The Case of Puerto Rican Older Adults

ABSTRACT

A conceptual model for the design and implementation of effective social services for Latino older adult immigrants in the United States is proposed in this article. Built on the stage-of-migration framework (Drachman, 1992 Drachman, D. 1992. A stage-of-migration framework for service to immigrant populations. Social Work, 37: 68–72. [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the model presented shows how the premigration service experience of Latino older adults can be used as a basis for service design and implementation in the country of immigration. The case of Puerto Rican older adult immigrants is used to illustrate how the model can be applied to understand present service utilization and develop future programs that are useful and culturally sensitive for Latino older adult immigrants.     

Educational disparities across regions: A multilevel analysis for Italy and Spain

In this paper, a multilevel analysis is applied to the OECD-PISA2006 data with the aim to compare factors affecting students’ achievement across Italy and Spain. The findings show that both countries are affected by strong internal regional heterogeneity, where some regions have achievement scores well above the OECD mean and other are placed among the worst performers in the OECD area. Although regional governments are more autonomous about educational policy-making in Spain, regional indicators exert a higher influence on educational results in Italy where educational system is strictly regulated by the national government.     

Daughters helping their elderly mothers: impact of early attachment, daughter's trait anxiety and helping interaction characteristics

The aim of the study was to explore the relationships between early attachment between mother and daughter, the adult daughter's general anxiety level, and characteristics of the helping interaction between the adult daughter and her elderly mother on the one hand and the quality of this help on the other. One sample consisted of 46 Swedish women (mean age: 55 years) who acted as informal caregivers for their elderly mothers. A second sample consisted of 106 Swedish female nursing students (mean age: 27 years). The participants rated the quality of the practical, physical and psychosocial help they gave their elderly mothers (imagined helping activities in a predefined situation among the nursing students). Subjects also rated their mother's degree of caring and overprotection in childhood, their own trait anxiety, and various characteristics of their helping interactions. A high degree of motherly caring and a low degree of motherly overprotection in childhood covaried with a lower level of trait anxiety in the adult daughters. These conditions, in turn, covaried with mutual friendliness during the helping interactions. All these conditions covaried with high-quality psychosocial support. The quality of practical help and physical caring covaried with friendliness during the helping interactions only.     

Housing needs of grandparent caregivers: grandparent,youth, and professional perspectives

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study examined the housing needs of grandparent caregivers and the youth in their care in New York State. Nine focus groups were conducted separately with grandparent caregivers (n = 46) and youth (n = 34), and interviews were conducted with key informants (n = 17) knowledgeable about housing and issues. Housing needs of greatest priority, contextual differences, and potential barriers to securing housing and social services were identified. Key themes indicated that housing challenges stem from four problem domains: the experience of poverty, which creates affordability challenges that trap grandparent caregivers and their grandchildren in unsuitable homes and unsafe neighborhoods; physical challenges of aging grandparents, which require specific housing accommodations; changes in family composition when taking in grandchildren, which necessitate moving out of prior accommodations or changing housing plans due to regulatory issues; and obstacles to obtaining needed benefits, including a lack of information, burdensome application processes, ineligibility, and a shortage of resources. These issues are discussed with implications for policy and practice.