Service providers to the homeless mentally Ill: Their thoughts,perceptions, and recommendations for the homeless

A qualitative research study was conducted to obtain an understanding of the people who provide services to persons who are homeless and mentally ill. Service providers were asked about the kinds of services they provide, what they consider beneficial to this population, the kinds of services they would like to provide, and what is needed to alleviate the homeless problem. Services found in the study included, those that meet basic needs, psychiatric/medical services, social services, and activities. Service providers indicated the major service priority is housing and the necessity of: (a) a safe environment, (b) additional psychiatric/social services, (c) day programs, and (d) health care. It is recommended that service providers advocate for the necessary improvements in services including, collaborative workshops and training sessions to the public and to each other.     

Stress,Coping, and Mental Health Differences among Homeless People

People who are chronically homeless are assumed to have higher rates of mental health problems than episodically or new‐entry homeless individuals. It is unclear to what extent early‐life and current stressors account for this disadvantage. Guided by cumulative disadvantage theory and stress research, we analyze data from a national study of the US homeless population to examine how stressors and coping resources throughout the life course are implicated in differences among homeless people in psychiatric disorders and alcohol or other drug abuse disorders. Logistic regression analysis reveals that new‐entry homeless persons are less likely than their chronically and episodically homeless counterparts to have current psychiatric disorders. This is explained by stressors and coping resources experienced in childhood and during adult homeless spells. Alcohol and other drug abuse is common but comparable across the three homeless types and shares an association with selected stress and coping measures. Findings lend credibility to an accumulation of risks perspective, highlighting how past as well as contemporaneous stressors are related to the mental health of homeless people.     

A Portrait of Older Homeless Men: Identifying Hopelessness and Adaptation

Using participant observation as a homeless shelter volunteer and through face-to-face long interviews with four homeless elders (50+) and six service providers throughout the Greater Cincinnati Metropolitan area, data revealed unique coping strategies and patterns of service use of older homeless people. A state of hopelessness characterized many older homeless people who adapted and functioned in their culture of poverty. Sources of hopelessness were identified. Unique adaptations were noted for certain individuals who either learned to use the services opportunities provided or learned to exploit/abuse the service network. This group of people have found a social niche in which they can function and meet basic survival needs.     

Overcoming Barriers to Homeless Delivery Services: A Community Response

Homelessness is one of the most pressing social problems today. The.lnstitute of Medicine defines the problem as a failure in the support systems created to prevent the problem and a tighter housing market. The assumption is that the support system should help to prevent the occurrence of homelessness. The Eastern Fairfield County area peiformed a study to look at the relationship between those services serving people who are homeless and near homeless to determine the availability, accessibility, and adequacy of services for homeless people. The study identified several barriers in the service delivery system. A strategy was then developed to address these barriers. This paper shows how a research process can facilitate a community response to a social problem. The paper presents the steps that were taken so other communities may replicate the process.     

Genealogy and Ideology of Taiwan Homeless Delivery Services

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, the number of homeless in Taiwan has been increasing. Politicians, policy makers, and service providers frequently debate whether the government should provide services for the homeless. Democracy and economic change have increased the number of homeless in Taiwan. However, the current homeless problem is also a product of a conservative welfare ideology based on family values and moral judgments. This study has implications for social workers and policy makers. (1) A universal principle for nationwide homeless delivery systems is required. (2) Restrictions that prohibit adults and youths with families providing little support from entering shelters should be eliminated. (3) Employment consultation and housing compensation should be provided to assist street people in re-entering mainstream society. (4) Supportive relationships with mainstream- based outreach services should be developed.     

Characteristics of Homeless Jail Inmates: Implications for Social Work

This study set out to validate the hypothesis (belief) that homeless people were likely to commit minor offenses as solutions to their conditions. Jails, and maybe prisons, would provide three meals a day, a place to sleep, and minimal health care-especially during the winter months. Instead, the data did not support the hypothesis. Contrary to the reported practices of some homeless people in Colorado who are described as committing non-serious but timed offenses to go to jail, it found a homeless population in jail who give a literal interpretation to the political phrase “the invisible people.” They were not in jail because they were homeless, but instead they were in jail for serious crimes (murder, rape, drugs, robbery) and their homelessness was a side fact Since it was not likely that this group would seek to address or resolve their homelessness, it was recommended that jail social workers identify their needs to them, track them into social welfare networks, with a designated contact person, prior to their release.     

A Social Comparison Perspective of Treatment Seeking by the Homeless

The homeless will readily list ailments they claim to have, yet they will also claim that such ailments are not a problem and do not warrant treatmente In an attempt to understand this apparent paradox, data from a sampLe of homeless individuals were re-analyzed from a social comparison perspective. It was hypothesized that increased entrenchment in homelessness (increased isolation from “nonhomeless” environments and further involvement in the homeless environment) — operationalized by longer time spent on the street and a greater number of street friends — would lead homeless individuals to alter their perceptions of what constitutes a problem worthy of treatment. Results supported this hypothesis, in direction, and in almost all tests conducted. The involvement of adaptation level theory in such a social comparison process and the implications for intelVention and treatment are discussed.     

Voices of Homeless Parents

Abstract

Homeless families with children comprise approximately 40% of homeless people and the fastest-growing group among the homeless. However, the pain and suffering faced by homeless parents, especially single mothers, as providers for and protectors of their children has yet to be documented and understood. In this paper, we illustrate the frustrations, guilt, confusion, and hope of 50 homeless parents staying at three homeless shelters in two large northeastern cities. We hope that a clear understanding of these parents' subjective experiences of homelessness will contribute to the evaluation and improvement of the effectiveness of social work interventions for homeless families.     

Homeless mothers and depression: misdirected policy.

This paper is a critique of recent service-intensive shelter programs for homeless mothers and the policies that underlie these shelters. We first document the process by which mental health problems and family homelessness became so closely but mistakenly linked. We then demonstrate empirically that shelter programs for homeless families nonetheless presume that mental health problems are part of the causal nexus of family homelessness and indiscriminately deliver mental health services to homeless mothers. Simultaneously, shelter programs encourage the isolation of their residents from what they presume to be their "problematic" social networks. We show that, while mental health services had little impact on depression levels among homeless mothers, isolation from social networks did increase depression among homeless mothers. Our findings suggest that policy should put more emphasis on rapid reintegration into the community through providing housing, and it should put less emphasis on providing services.     

Policing the Homeless: An Ethical Dilemma

The homeless challenge police to reconsider their social role, the constituency they serve, the alliances they should form, and the activities they should engage in. This paper considers three conceptions of the police role — law enforcement, order maintenance, and social peacekeeping — and indicates how they impinge on treatment of the homeless. The moral challenge posed by the homeless favors the peacekeeping conception, but the inadequate resources available to police make it essential that they consider alliances with social service organizations, and even some form of collective lobbying or public conscientization.     

Exploring the Hidden Nature of Gambling Problems among People Who Are Homeless

Abstract

Although people with gambling problems are now recognised to be among those groups of people at increased risk of homelessness, little research has explored their experiences. This qualitative interpretive study explored the experiences of people who were homeless and had gambling problems, and the housing and gambling service providers assisting them. In-depth interviews were conducted with 17 service users and 18 service providers. A key finding was that gambling problems among those experiencing homelessness are often hidden; few people presented to housing services admitting to gambling problems. Shame, stigma, and identity issues were described as the main reasons service users did not disclose their gambling activities. The research highlighted that the relationship between service providers and service users was infused with power imbalances and shaped by social discourses and policies that demand self-responsibility and hinder information sharing between service providers and service users.     

Managing Risk: Self-Regulation Among Homeless Youth

While homeless youth are characterized by their risky behaviours we know little about how they conceptualize and manage risk in their everyday lives. This article will flesh out one aspect of a doctoral study that explored homeless youth’s conceptualizations of risk, by unearthing their self-regulation practices. Deploying an ethnographic lens, 18 youth were followed over a 1–4 year period to capture their risk perception and practices as they unfolded. The findings question the relevancy of the prominence of expert discourses in theories of risk. The study’s empirical findings run counter to the thesis that expert systems predominate in practices of self-regulation. In contrast, practices of self-regulation were not so much in response to expert discourses or social norms but were balanced by personal experience, intuition, and situated knowledges. Results provide valuable insights into the interplay of lay and expert knowledges in the construction of risk among an identified risky and at-risk group. Lessons can also be drawn for clinical practice and the relevancy of the expert role that social workers play in the lives of homeless youth.     

Homeless identities: enacted and ascribed

Homelessness has been a perennial concern for sociologists. It is a confronting phenomenon that can challenge western notions of home, a discrete family unit and the ascetics and order of public space. To be without a home and to reside in public places illustrates both an intriguing way of living and some fundamental inadequacies in the functioning of society. Much homelessness research has had the consequence of isolating the 'homeless person' as distinct category or indeed type of individual. They are ascribed with homeless identities. The homeless identity is not simply presented as one dimensional and defining, but this imposed and ill-fitting identity is rarely informed by a close and long-term engagement with the individuals it is supposed to say something about. Drawing on a recent Australian ethnographic study with people literally without shelter, this article aims to contribute to understandings of people who are homeless by outlining some nuanced and diverse aspects of their identities. It argues that people can and do express agency in the way they enact elements of the self, and the experience of homelessness is simultaneously important and unimportant to understand this. Further, the article suggests that what is presumably known about the homeless identity is influenced by day-to-day lives that are on public display.     

Are There Homeless Youth in My Community? Differences of Perception Between Service Providers and High School Youth

While teen homelessness, like all homelessness, is increasing, there have been few solid estimates of the actual number of teens effected. A twofold methodology to count homeless teens was used in the Seacoast region of New Hampshire and Maine. Social service agencies were contacted to obtain a count of homeless adolescents, and over 3000 high school age teens were surveyed in the seacoast ofNew Hampshire and southwestern Maine to identify how many were homeless. By using different definitions of homelessness, it was found that a minimum of 5% of all teens in high school reported that they had been homeless sometime during the past year. When using a broadened definition of homelessness, it was found that 20% of the teens regularly stayed with others. However, this experience was not identified by social service providers, who reported that teen homelessness simply was not a problem in their communities. In order to more accurately describe the phenomenon experienced by teens, it is proposed that the term “homelessness” should be replaced with a more inclusive word, such as “housing distress.”     

Rolling forward: addressing needs in the homeless community

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this pilot study was to use a bottom up, or grounded, approach to understand, from the perspective of the individuals living in the homeless community, what they feel would enable them to become housed and stay permanently housed. Organizations which serve homeless individuals often use a top down approach and implement programs without asking the homeless what they most need to find permanent housing. This project used intensive interviews to determine the needs of unhoused individuals in a mid-sized city with a tourist-centered economy in the south eastern United States. Working local homeless shelters, and various other intermediaries we collected data from 102 homeless individuals and 11 service providers. The major theme that emerged in our research is that the homeless individuals we interviewed were, for the most part, they were able to meet many of their basic needs, such as securing food, clothing, a place to bathe and wash their clothes, as well as obtain physical and mental care. However, they perceived lack of reliable and affordable transportation to be a significant barrier to obtaining and maintaining employment, making and keeping appointments, and maintaining their social support network.     

Volunteering to Assist the Homeless: Public Service and Individual Differences

Abstract

The present investigation examined the effects of three public service announcements (PSAs) on undergraduates’ willingness to volunteer to assist the homeless at a local emergency shelter. A PSA designed to arouse empathy in listeners generally yielded a higher rate of volunteering to assist the homeless than either a self-oriented PSA or an unemotional, other-oriented PSA. The PSA designed to arouse empathy was found to be especially effective in promoting volunteering in individuals who scored relatively high on trait affective empathy and who, in turn, reported a relatively strong empathic response to this message.     

Perceptions of and Reactions to the Homeless: A Survey of Fourth-Grade,High School,and College Students in a Small Midwestern Community

A total of 459 fourth-graders, high school students, and undergraduates completed a Homelessness Questionnaire developed for use in this study. Although participants generally expressed positive and supportive attitudes toward the homeless, attributing homelessness to either social maladjustment (e.g., drug problem) or negative characteristics (e.g., laziness) within the homeless was positively associated with “fear of and anger toward the homeless” for all groups of participants. In addition, perceptions of and reactions to the homeless were influenced by both the participants’ gender and age group. Although high school and college students’ interest in helping the homeless was associated with various attitudes and reactions (e.g., feelings of sympathy/support), their indication that they had ever helped homeless people (either directly or indirectly) was consistently associated only with the acknowledgment that their mother and father had ever helped homeless people (either directly or indirectly). Among these older participants, homelessness in the United States was rated as a more serious problem at the end of the questionnaire than at the beginning.     

A psychiatric nurse's role

1. Homelessness in America is a result of complex social, political, and economic forces; approximately one third to one half of the homeless have severe emotional problems. 2. The person with chronic mental illness who is also homeless will face numerous obstacles when the need for psychiatric care arises. 2. The person with chronic mental illness who is also homeless will face numerous obstacles when the need for psychiatric care arises. 3. The federal government is beginning to address the problems of the homeless chronically mentally ill population by establishing pilot programs in Veterans Administration hospitals. 4. The psychiatric nurse is in a unique position to provide services to those who are homeless and mentally ill.     

Health Issues of Homeless Youth

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of what is currently known about the health issues of homeless youth, focusing on risk-taking behaviors, health status, and access to care. The paper addresses the health issues of homeless youth in the U.S. within an international context. Existing data suggest that homeless adolescents exhibit high rates of risk-taking behaviors, face additional barriers to access of health care, and suffer from a high burden of poor health. However, most research on the health of homeless youth has been cross-sectional and has relied on convenience sampling. Future research should focus on conducting more methodologically rigorous studies on the specific health needs of homeless youth. Research should include eliciting information directly from the youth about their preferred health care interventions.