Homeless in the mind: A case-history of personal life in and out of a close orthodox community

A sociogenetic theoretical framework is applied to Berger, Berger, and Kellner's (1973) concept of cultural homelessness, extending its use beyond the sociological effects of modernity to the psychological development of persons who are closely tied to their collective-cultural contexts. The theory is grounded in the bidirectionality of cultural transmission, and the construction of culture in different cultural members. The construction of internal personal cultures is brought about by the individual with the support of social others. The processes by which cultural messages are internalized and externalize back into the culture explain how feeling at home or not at home are normal aspects of socialization. An illustrative example of a retrospective case-history of a woman's feeling of homelessness in an ultraorthodox community shows how the individual internalizes and transforms cultural norms. Examples of further applications of the theoretical principles are presented, and implications of feelings of homelessness for understanding the normal processes of socialization.     

Overcoming Barriers to Homeless Delivery Services: A Community Response

Homelessness is one of the most pressing social problems today. The Institute 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 performed 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.     

No Place Called Home: Life Quality and Purpose of Homeless Youths

Subjective quality of life (SQOL) has been reported to display remarkable resilience to objective circumstances. This is thought to derive from the capacity to interpret experience in positive ways, but is defeated by very adverse circumstances. This raises the question of whether such positive mental devices are able to adequately protect the SQOL of homeless youths, who typically face substantial objective trials. This study compares youths who are homeless or at risk of homelessness with youths living consistently with their families (control group). It was found that both the homeless and at risk youths reported significantly lower SQOL. These youths also reported lower levels of personal meaning than the control group, and higher existential vacuum. Of the variables measured, personal meaning provided the strongest prediction of SQOL, challenging theories that would predict choice/responsibleness to provide the predominant contribution. Lack of differences in response between homeless and at risk youths suggests that subjective difficulties may precede homelessness rather than stem from it. A model is proposed to describe the possible factors involved in the maintenance and erosion of SQOL.     

Changing Attitudes Toward the Homeless: The Effects of Prosocial Communication With the Homeless

One hundred, thirty-four undergraduate students participated in a field experiment designed to examine the effects of extended, prosocial communication with homeless persons, upon attitudes toward the homeless problem, of behavioral intentions towards the homeless, and of causal attributions about homelessness. It was expected that prosocial interaction with the homeless would produce shifts in attitudes and behavioral intentions toward the homeless and homelessness and result in greater attributions of external causes to explain homelessness. Nineteen experimental participants worked 15 hours at a local homeless shelter. Their responses to a posttest questionnaire that measured a range of attitudinal and behavioral orientations toward the homeless were compared with control participants who did not work at the shelter. Subsequent analyses furnished strong evidence of positive changes in attitudes and intentions toward homelessness among the shelter workers. These participants evaluated homeless people as less blameworthy and more socially attractive than did control participants; moreover, shelter workers indicated more personal responsibility and behavioral commitment to helping the homeless than control participants. They also perceived the homeless problem to be more serious and were more likely to attribute homelessness to bad luck than control participants. However, the two groups were equally likely to attribute homelessness to various external causes such as the economy, housing costs, and governmental policies. The results are interpreted as having policy implications for volunteer service.     

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.     

Cultural and Personal Dimensions in Human Life

The closing panel of the 7th NMCOP Conference discussed issues at the interface of individual development and culture. While social work psychotherapists have always recognized the impact of culture on the individual, current psychoanalytic explorations and theorizing are attending to basic assumptions about living that vary considerably among cultures, are deeply embedded in the unconscious, and profoundly affect psychological development and functioning. Awareness of these differences is essential when the therapist encounters a patient from a culture that is very different from her own and when the language used in psychotherapy is a foreign one for the patient. Experiences are processed in the symbol system of the language in which they occurred. Psychotherapy for the foreign born includes a process of translation of experiences to which a sensitive psychotherapist needs to attune herself.     

Profaning the Past to Salvage the Present: The Symbolically Reconstructed Pasts of Homeless Shelter Residents

Homelessness presents challenges for maintaining a positive self-concept, and those seeking help from homeless shelters face a particular irony: establishing service-worthiness requires them to present themselves as homeless, not self-sufficient, and genuinely in need of help, yet also morally worthy of that help. How do shelter residents manage this tension and salvage the self within the institutional context of the shelter? A theoretical framework linking Mead, Goffman, and narrative helps clarify strategies of self-presentation and salvaging the self within the homeless shelter context. Drawing on interviews with 44 shelter residents, this paper demonstrates that residents construct narratives that symbolically reconstruct the past from the standpoint of the present, and draw on the stages of the shelter's moral career to present a temporally-divided self, allowing residents to strategically profane the past self while keeping the present self separate and sacred. Implications for research on other institutional selves are also discussed.     

Imaging Homelessness and Homeless People: Visions and Strategies Within the Movement(s)

The deserving versus undeserving distinctions typically applied to poor people are examined as applied to homeless people. When these labels are applied by others, three categories—Lackers, Slackers, and Unwilling Victims—appear rather than a binary division. Further, the role these images play within antihomelessness movements is examined. Images shape strategies, and strategies shape images, both consciously and unconsciously. Three clusters of image and strategy are examined, and the implications for the antihomelessness movement discussed.     

Supporting Family Life: A Survey of Homeless Shelters

Survey data from a national sample of homeless family shelters (N = 59) were analyzed to describe the family support programming available to residents. Data were reporled on facility and resident characteristics and family support programming, as well as on facility admission criteria and program participation requirements. Four independent valiables (length of stay, shelter capacity, sponsorship, and program philosophy) were examined for their relationship to the family-oriented services offered. Facilities sheltered an average of 17 families, with a range of 2-200; the average length of stay for families was slightly over 5 months. Regarding family programming, services of an educational nature were more popular than those focused on providing support or therapy/intervention; services to parents to further adult development were more often offered than those either directed to parents in their parenting roles or to the family as a unit. Vbtually all shelters (98%) applied eligibility criteria to families seeking admission. The most common reasons for exclusion were active drug (86%) and alcohol (83%) abuse by a family member; 40% also refused acceptance to falnilies with adolescent n'lales. Seventy-eight percent of facilities mandated panicipation in some support services. Smaller shelters operated with greater numbers of exclusions (x = 5.98773; p < .05); larger shelters had higher percentages of mandatory family programming (x =

9.21823; p < .06). These findings shed light on shelter directors' beliefs about the etiology of family homelessness and proper steps to solve the problem.     

Culturally Competent Social Work Practice with Veterans: An Overview of the U.S. Military

Despite social work's longstanding history of serving veterans, few resources support culturally competent practice with this population. If social workers are to serve veterans effectively and efficiently, a basic understanding of the U.S. military is essential. This article presents a basic overview of U.S. military including its structure and history, the propensity to enlist in the armed forces, culture, and training methods and objectives. With an understanding of these aspects of military service and continued effort to learn about their client's military experience, social workers will be prepared to provide culturally competent services consistent with the profession's values and ethics.     

Project Homeless: A Model for Student Involvement in Community College

This paper describes the way students activated community awareness and involvement in the problem of homelessness in their rural area by participating in Project Homeless, a community organization and planning course. Students studied research and collected data by interviewing service providers to discover met and un-met needs, problems, and available resources. As a result of their findings, the community mental health center sponsored a task force on homelessness.     

Adverse Life Experiences and Homelessness Among Adolescents: an examination of the conditions for convergence

Abstract

There are two factors that limit our knowledge of the risk factors associated with homelessness among runaway adolescents, namely (1) the samples used are often composed of youth homeless service users and/or youths living on the streets (visible homelessness), whereas most adolescents in fact use “private” resources (hidden homelessness), and (2) failure to use an adequate control group to identify risk factors associated specifically with homelessness. Our study compares the characteristics of two groups of youths under the supervision oftheyouth protection system, according to the presence or absence of periods of homelessness. The results throw light on the factors underlying the shiftfrom “at risk” to “homeless”, showing that youths with experience of homelessness are more likely to have been placed in substitute home environments, have experienced significant relationship difficulties with one of their parents (deterioration ofthe parent/youth relationship and parental abuse) and to have been diagnosed with behavioral disorders. The findings suggest that the decision to place young people under supervision is based more on the dynamic between risk factors rather than on the existence of behavioral problems.     

The Impact of Community Prestige upon Personal Appraisals of Life Conditions: A Comparative Analysis*

On a recolte des donnees sur une ville manufacturiere de Costa Rica, une communaute paysanne du Guatemala et un village rural de l'Etat du Michigan, dans le but d'examiner les relations qui existent entre les systemes de prestige de la communaute et revolution personnelle des habitants de leur situation dans la vie. La liaison entre ces deux variables est faible dans ces trois unites sociales. Cependant, les criteres utilises dans chaque communaute pour refleter les deux systemes devaluation comportent des differences importantes. S'ap-puyant sur ces resultats, l'auteur suggere que le prestige communautaire et 1'evaluation personnelle de sa situation dans la vie subissent independamment l'influence de quatre attributs structurels majeurs. C'est en tenant compte de la configuration de ces attributs structurels que Ton en vient a saisir la nature des liens qui existent entre ces deux systemes dévaluation. Data from a Costa Rican factory town, a Guatemalan peasant community and a Michigan rural community are utilized to inquire into the relationship between community prestige systems and individuals' private appraisals of their conditions in life. In each community, little relationship exists between these two variables. However, there are important variations among the communities in the criteria involved in both systems of evaluation. On the basis of these findings it is suggested that community prestige and personal appraisals of life conditions are independently influenced by four key structural attributes. The relationship between the two evaluative systems is dependent upon the configuration of the structural attributes.     

“Mom said we had a money maker”: Sexualization and Survival Contexts among Homeless Women

This study examines the lived experiences of a group of homeless women, with particular attention to their “sexualization” and how this frames their interpretations of and responses to their homelessness. A symbolic interactionist approach locates the social construction of femininity with its emphasis on sexualized embodiment within larger structural conditions of gender inequality. The impact of these structural conditions intersects with homelessness for the participants in this study. In‐depth interviews at a homeless shelter reveal the early sexualization that degraded and violated the women, eroding their self‐worth as young girls and, later, as adults. These circumstances shaped their gendered fears and vulnerabilities and influenced the context of their survival.     

The Social Ecology of Homelessness: Exploring the Dynamics of Engagement among Homeless Street Adults

The study examines interaction patterns of homeless populations. The study explores how this population interacts within a given environment. The current study utilizes a person/environment engagement model to analyze behavioral interaction and perceptions in relation to the environment. The author establishes the notion that engagement is dependent on perception of the environment and actual environmental condition. This dual orientation presents a conundrum between internal feelings and external influence. On the one hand, behavior is a consequence of external environment. On the other hand, environment is the consequence of the individual's behavior. Given harsh conditions, the results revealed that either way of understanding is problematic. The author uses modern ecological perspective to develop conditions and interaction patterns.     

Homeless Violence and the Informal Rules of Street Life

Successful adaptation to street life requires that risk of violence, an often present aspect of this lifestyle, be reduced to as Iowa level as possible. This means knowing the infonnal rules which permit avoiding the pitfalls of street life. It is argued in this paper that safety and security are a function of interactions occurring within a specific place, with pal1icular associates, and involving safe and unsafe behavior. Carelessness with respect to any of these factors can result in victimization. These issues are discussed using SUlVey and ethnographic data collected in Chattanooga.     

Homeless Affiliation, Location, and Sender Address in Return of Lost Letters

A field study used 1008 lost letters to test the hypotheses that the differences in returned responses would be attributable to the addressee (i.e., ending homelessness-control or preventing it among youth, veterans, and lesbians) and especially to a socially deviant addressee, that cultural differences between distribution locations might influence returned responses of lost letters, and that sender address (i.e., urban, rural, control) would also influence returned responses. Both addressees' affiliations and distribution location were associated with returned responses, with the lowest rates being for the Prevent Lesbian Homelessness Program affiliate overall and for the city of Pensacola, respectively. Antigay prejudice toward a deviant group may still be strong even when a helping act can be performed without intimate contact involving members of deviant group. Neither distribution location nor the sender or return address conditions were associated with different returned responses. Further testing of the lost letter technique, as a measure of public response, may be warranted.     

Applications of Machine Learning Methods to Predict Readmission and Length-of-Stay for Homeless Families: The Case of Win Shelters in New York City

ABSTRACT

New York City faces the challenge of an ever-increasing homeless population with almost 60,000 people currently living in city shelters. In 2015, approximately 25% of families stayed longer than nine months in a shelter, and 17% of families with children that exited a homeless shelter returned to the shelter system within 30 days of leaving. This suggests that “long-term” shelter residents and those that re-enter shelters contribute significantly to the rise of the homeless population living in city shelters and indicate systemic challenges to finding adequate permanent housing. This article focuses on our preliminary work with Win (Women-in-Need) shelters to understand the factors that predict readmission and length-of-stay of homeless families. We create a unified, comprehensive database of the homeless population being served by Win shelters, accounting for more than 6,000 homeless families. We apply logistic regression models and an unsupervised clustering algorithm to identify predictors of re-entry and long-term length-of-stay. Citizenship, age, medical conditions, employment, and history of foster care or shelter stays as a child are found to be significant predictors. The results of the K-means clustering identify three primary groups, consistent with previous typologies characterized by transitionally homeless, episodically homeless, and chronically homeless.     

Timing Preferences for Women’s Family‐Life Transitions: Intergenerational Transmission Among Migrants and Dutch

This study examines the transmission of preferences regarding the timing of family‐life transitions of women among migrant and native Dutch families. We study how and to what extent parental preferences, migrant origin, and family characteristics affect the child’s timing preferences. We use parent and child data (N= 1,290) from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (2002, 2003) and the Social Position and Provisions Ethnic Minorities Survey (2002). Regression analyses reveal that parental timing preferences regarding family‐life transitions are strongly associated with the timing preferences of their children. Analyses also show that these preferences strongly vary by migrant origin, educational level, and religious involvement. The process of intergenerational transmission, however, is found to be very similar among migrants and Dutch.