The 1996 National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients: A Comparison of Faith-Based and Secular Non-Profit Programs. Clients of Homeless Assistance Programs

NSHAPC asked program administrators a number of questions about the clients of their programs, including whether “on an average day in February 1996 that the [emergency shelter or other type of] program operated, did the program serve (1) families with children (follow-up questions ask what share were single- versus two-parent, and among the single parent, what share were female headed), (2) two-parent families with children, (3) adults without children, and (4) unaccompanied youth or children, 17 years of age or under?  It is important to note that the answers to these questions reflect the types of clients actually served by homeless assistance programs, and not the types of clients they are willing or able to serve.  It should also be noted that these clients may or may not be homeless.  Clients of housing programs such as emergency and transitional shelters are clearly homeless, but clients of soup kitchen or health programs need not be homeless.¹⁵  Tables 3and 4 and Figure 3 present the share of faith-based and secular non-profits serving each of the following types of clients: men by themselves, women by themselves, female-headed households with children, other households with children, and youth.  The data do not reveal what share of clients are from these groups, but simply whether or not the program serves any such clients.

Figure 3:
Percentage of Faith-Based and Secular Nonprofit Programs Serving Various Population Groups

As the first rows of Tables 3 and 4 indicate, faith-based programs are generally more likely than secular non-profits to serve each of the five client groups covered.  Almost 90 percent of faith-based programs serve single men, and almost 85 percent serve women by themselves and single women with children.  The group most often served by secular non-profits is single women (80 percent of them report serving such clients), followed by females with children (served by 77 percent of secular non-profits), and single men (72 percent).  Not surprisingly given their unique needs and circumstances, the group least likely to be served by either type of program is youth.  Youth are served by only 36 percent of faith-based programs and 31 percent of secular non-profits. 

Source:  Urban Institute analysis of NSHAPC program data.  Data represent "an average day in February 1996."

Source:  Urban Institute analysis of NSHAPC program data.  Data represent "an average day in February 1996."

A closer look at specific types of programs reveals that differences in the client groups served by faith-based and secular non-profits depend on both the population group and the type of program.  Beginning with single men, Tables 3 and 4 show that the vast majority (88 percent) of faith-based non-profits serve single men, while a smaller but still substantial share (72 percent) of secular non-profits serve this group.  For food programs, almost 95 percent of faith-based programs serve single men compared to 87 percent of secular programs.  The share of programs serving single men is lowest among housing programs (75 percent of faith-based programs and 56 percent of secular programs), but differences between faith-based and secular non-profits are found among all types of homeless assistance programs.

The patterns are less clear for single women.  While 85 percent of all faith-based programs serve single women compared to 80 percent of secular non-profits, among specific types of programs — such as health or housing programs — a larger share of secular non-profits than faith-based programs serve single women.  This is true of most types of housing programs and several types of health programs.  Almost all food programs run by either type of sponsoring agency serve single women, but a larger share of faith-based agencies running “other” types of programs serve single women than do secular non-profits.

Patterns of service for female-headed households with children are similar to those for single women.  Faith-based programs as a group are generally more likely to serve female-headed families than are secular programs, but secular health, housing, and “other” programs are all more likely to have such clients than are faith-based programs.  Thus, only for food programs do a much larger percentage of faith-based agencies (96 percent) serve women with children than do secular non-profits (86 percent).

Other families (i.e., those headed by two parents, one male parent, or no parents) are less frequently served by both secular and faith-based non-profits, with 78 percent of faith-based and 60 percent of secular non-profit programs serving these families.  Still, 93 percent of faith-based food programs serve this population as do 81 percent of secular non-profits.  The share of programs serving these family types drops dramatically when programs other than food programs are examined.  Fifty-three and 42 percent of faith-based and secular housing programs serve this group of clients, and 46 and 58 percent of health programs do.

The last population group is unaccompanied youth, who are served by just 36 percent of all faith-based programs and 31 percent of secular programs.  This is the one group that is not served by most faith-based food programs:  45 percent of these programs report having unaccompanied youth among their clients.  Compared to similar programs run by faith-based agencies, youth are served by a larger share of secular health and “other” programs, but the percentages that serve youth are small among all types of programs. 

In general, faith-based programs of all types are much more likely than secular programs to serve single men.  This is the only client group for which this is true.  For other groups of clients, faith-based providers are more likely to serve them if one looks at all types of programs combined, but this finding is driven almost entirely by food programs, which account for the majority of faith-based programs.  When one looks at other types of programs such as housing or health programs, secular non-profits are often more likely to serve some types of clients than are faith-based non-profits (see Figure 3).

Although the number of programs decreases dramatically when these findings are broken down by urban-rural status and region, one broad pattern does emerge:  both faith-based and secular programs in rural areas are more likely to serve clients from each population group than do the same programs in suburban areas and especially in urban areas.  This may reflect the inclusion of more generic social service programs in the sampling plan used for NSHAPC in rural areas.  The relative scarcity of homeless programs and homeless clients in rural areas may mean that rural area programs, even homeless-specific ones, may not have enough volume to specialize and may have to be more flexible in serving anyone in need of assistance.

15.  Certain questions in the mail survey are limited to the needs of clients “who are homeless.”  Later sections of this report indicate when the findings pertain to homeless clients specifically.

• Special Focus of Homeless Assistance Programs

  • In addition to asking what types of clients they serve, NSHAPC asked program administrators whether their programs focused on one or more special population groups, such as children, veterans, or HIV patients.¹⁶  Table 5 lists the share of faith-based non-profits, secular non-profits, and government run programs that focus on each specific population group.  Figure 4 also displays the same information graphically.

    Table 5:
    Do NSHAPC Programs Have a Special Focus?
    (Share of programs with any type of special focus)

    			All Programs	Faith-Based Non-Profit	Secular Non-Profit	Government
    All Program Types			15,350 of 36,493	2,753 of 12,526	9,998 of 18,643	2,598 of 5,323
    			42.1%	22.0%	53.6%	48.8%
    	Housing		53.5	40.7	62.4	38.3
    		Emergency Shelter	59.5	39.0	69.4	50.1
    		Transitional Shelter	63.7	60.4	68.0	47.8
    		Permanent Housing	54.7	44.4	61.9	45.5
    		Distribute Vouchers	26.0	11.0	37.8	16.8
    		Housing For Vouchers	45.4	47.0	49.0	33.9
    	Food		19.9	11.6	31.6	21.4
    		Soup Kitchen/Meal Distribution	28.4	18.9	48.1	23.3
    		Food Pantry	15.4	7.8	24.6	20.9
    		Mobile Food	49.3	25.8	63.5	100.0
    	Health		74.6	54.9	77.7	74.2
    		Physical Health Care	48.7	7.5	60.1	47.0
    		Mental Health	83.5	.	80.9	85.1
    		Alcohol or Drug	87.0	80.3	84.1	95.1
    		HIV/AIDS	83.6	.	80.7	90.0
    	Other		45.3	19.1	53.7	53.0
    		Outreach	52.0	25.2	53.0	72.1
    		Drop-In Center	46.8	28.0	49.1	92.2
    		Financial/Housing Assist.	39.9	2.3	75.6	30.8
    		Other	35.0	14.5	48.6	41.0

    Source:  Urban Institute analysis of NSHAPC program data.  Data represent "an average day in February 1996." 

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    Figure 4:
    Percentage of Programs with a Special Focus

    Faith-based programs are much less likely than secular non-profits or government programs to have a special focus.

    From Figure 4 it is clear that faith-based programs are significantly less likely to have a special focus than are secular non-profits or government programs.  Only 22 percent of all faith-based programs report having a special focus, compared to 54 percent of secular non-profits and 49 percent of government programs.  The percentage of faith-based programs with a special focus is especially low among food programs: only 12 percent of these programs have any special focus compared to 32 percent of secular non-profit and 21 percent of government-run food programs.  Faith-based food programs located in central cities are slightly more likely to specialize, but the percentage of programs that do so (15 percent) is still much smaller than that of secular programs (35 percent) and government programs (34 percent).  These results reflect the low rates of specialization among food programs, the type of program most often run by faith-based agencies.

    Faith-based housing programs located in central cities are much more likely than those in other areas to have a special focus.

    Housing and health programs are much more likely to specialize, no matter what type of agency sponsors them.  Forty-one percent of faith-based housing programs have a special focus, including 60 percent of transitional housing programs.  These percentages are still lower than those for secular non-profit housing programs (62 percent of all housing and 68 percent of transitional housing programs have a special focus), but they are higher than the corresponding percentage of government housing programs with a special focus (38 percent of all housing and 48 percent of transitional programs).  Faith-based housing programs located in central cities are significantly more likely to specialize than those in suburban or rural areas.  Among health programs, about 55 percent of faith-based programs have a special focus, compared to 78 percent of secular non-profit and 74 percent of government health programs.  There are too few faith-based health programs to examine these results by urban status or region of the country.  Among programs in the “other” category, only 19 percent of faith-based programs have a special focus, compared to 54 percent of secular non-profits and 53 percent of government programs.  These differences remain when comparing programs in central cities, suburban, and rural areas, and in all regions of the country.

    In general, these results indicate that faith-based programs of all types are less likely to have a special focus than those run by secular non-profits.  This is especially true of faith-based food programs, which very rarely report having a special focus.  These findings fit our characterization of faith-based programs as programs that provide a basic set of services to a diverse group of clients.  They are less likely to specialize on one or more groups of clients (families, youth, etc.) or on one or more special needs (victims of domestic violence, HIV positive, etc.).  Instead, faith-based programs seem to be more general providers of basic assistance to many types of people, including many poor people who may not be literally homeless.

    Another question of interest is: What special focus do homeless assistance programs tend to have?  The answer to this question was gleaned from two sources: reports about the primary mission of the program as well as any special populations the program had as a focus.  This information was only developed for “core” homeless assistance programs with relatively large sample sizes, namely emergency shelters, transitional and permanent housing programs, and soup kitchens.  Table 6 lists the shares of faith-based, secular non-profit, and government organizations that report an overall program focus.

    Table 6:
    What Special Focus Do NSHAPC Programs Have?

    		Number of Programs	Faith-Based Non-Profit	Secular Non-Profit	Government
    Emergency Shelter with		5,320 (100%)	1,520 (100%)	3,480 (100%)	320 (100%)
    	No specialization	40.6	63.2	30.4	44.6
    	Mental health (MH) focus	3.7	2.5	4.1	5.2
    	Chemical dependency (CD) focus	8.6	15.5	5.3	12.6
    	MH/CD focus	1.4	2.7	0.9	1.0
    	HIV/AIDS focus	1.4	1.8	1.3	0.3
    	Domestic violence (DV) focus	30.3	5.2	42.1	20.1
    	Youth focus	8.3	1.7	11.3	6.8
    	Family focus	5.6	7.4	4.5	9.3
    Transitional Shelter with		4,149 (100%)	1,181 (100%)	2,535 (100%)	433 (100%)
    	No specialization	43.4	54.8	35.6	57.6
    	Mental health (MH) focus	8.3	3.5	9.6	14.2
    	Chemical dependency (CD) focus	14.4	16.6	15.2	4.2
    	MH/CD focus	5.2	2.9	6.3	5.2
    	HIV/AIDS focus	3.1	1.2	4.2	1.7
    	Domestic violence (DV) focus	14.0	7.7	18.2	6.6
    	Youth focus	4.4	5.6	4.6	0.2
    	Family focus	7.1	7.6	6.3	10.2
    Permanent Housing with		1,719 (100%)	205 (100%)	980 (100%)	534 (100%)
    	No specialization	63.6	61.6	52.8	84.2
    	Mental health (MH) focus	15.7	8.8	22.1	6.6
    	Chemical dependency (CD) focus	5.2	11.0	5.2	2.9
    	MH/CD focus	5.8	5.6	7.8	2.2
    	HIV/AIDS focus	9.8	13.0	12.1	4.2
    Soup Kitchen with		3,284 (100%)	2,131 (100%)	1,057 (100%)	.
    	No specialization	83.2	84.9	79.4	.
    	Mental health (MH) focus	6.1	4.4	9.8	.
    	Chemical dependency (CD) focus	6.7	7.6	5.2	.
    	Family focus	2.4	2.9	1.6	.
    	HIV/AIDS focus	1.5	0.2	4.0	.

    Source:  Urban Institute analysis of NSHAPC program data.  Data represent "an average day in February 1996."

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    The most common focus among emergency shelters is domestic violence.

    The most common focus of all emergency shelter programs is domestic violence, with 30 percent of all programs reporting victims of domestic violence as a primary focus.  Only 5 percent of faith-based programs have this focus, however, compared to 42 percent of secular non-profit and 20 percent of government emergency shelters.  The most common focus among faith-based emergency shelters is chemical dependency, reported by 16 percent of such programs.  Outside of central cities, faith-based emergency shelters focus on serving families more often than do similar programs within central cities.  These figures indicate a major difference in the focus of emergency shelters operated by secular non-profits and faith-based non-profits.  Whereas a substantial proportion of secular and government programs run shelters specifically for victims of domestic violence, faith-based shelters are much less likely to have any special focus, and only a small percentage are focused on domestic violence.

    Among transitional housing programs, the most common focus of faith-based non-profits is again chemical dependency (17 percent report this), but an almost equal share (15 percent) of secular non-profits have this as a focus of their transitional housing programs.  Again, in suburban and urban fringe areas, faith-based transitional housing programs are more likely to focus on families or youth than do similar central city programs.¹⁷ Domestic violence is the most common focus among secular non-profit transitional housing programs (15 percent), while mental health is most common among government programs (14 percent).  For permanent housing programs, the most common focus of faith-based programs is HIV/AIDS followed by chemical dependency, while secular non-profits focus are more likely to focus on mental health (22 percent have this focus).

    The vast majority of soup kitchens have no special focus.

    Not surprisingly, the vast majority of soup kitchens have no special focus.  Among those that do, the most common focus is mental health or chemical dependency.  Eight percent of faith-based soup kitchens focus on chemical dependency and 4 percent focus on mental health, compared to 5 percent of secular non-profits that focus on chemical dependency and 10 percent on mental health.  There are not enough government-run soup kitchens to include in the analysis.

    These figures indicate that there are few common missions or population groups targeted by a large percentage of transitional and permanent housing programs.  Those that do specialize tend to focus on domestic violence, chemical dependency, or mental health.  Among emergency shelter programs, however, a substantial proportion of secular non-profits, which run the majority of these programs, focus on domestic violence victims.  This focus is not shared by faith-based emergency shelters, which are much less likely to have any special focus.

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    16.  A program’s special focus was determined based on responses to questions about its primary population focus (30 groups were asked about) and the service location’s primary mission.  If answers to either of these indicated a focus, the program was classified according to that focus.  Classification rules included: any combination that included domestic violence was classified as having a domestic violence focus; any combination that included HIV/AIDS was classified as having an HIV/AIDS focus; and any combination that included youth was classified as having a youth focus.

    17.  In rural areas, there are too few faith-based transitional and permanent housing programs to be included in the analysis.