Early Childhood and Child Welfare

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. 2.2 Affordable Housing Programs

Since 1990, most of the growth in rental housing subsidy programs has been in affordable housing rather than assisted housing. The LIHTC was enacted in 1987 and, as of 2004, had produced about 1.2 million units of rental housing. In other words, the program is about the same size as the public housing program, and unlike public housing it contin

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. 2.1 Assisted Housing Programs

Assisted housing programs are examined first, which, of the two groups of programs, is the more likely to be usable by parents who have become homeless and are seeking permanent housing. Because assisted housing programs charge rent on the basis of actual income, however low, any family exiting homelessness should be able to afford to live in an a

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Section 2: Housing Resources for Permanent Housing for Parents Who Have Become Homeless and Their Children: Mainstream Subsidized Rental Housing

What housing resources are available to provide mainstream permanent housing for homeless families? This section discusses the Federal programs that provide subsidized rental housing to low-income families and individuals. To understand the potential of each of these programs for serving families leaving homelessness, it is important to distinguis

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Section 1: How Many Families with Children are Homeless and What Kind of Permanent Housing Do They Need?

An estimate based on the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (NSHAPC) is that in 1996 there were 60,860 families with children currently experiencing homelessness. 1 , 2 Another 101,840 homeless adults were parents of children under the age of 18 whose children do not live with them.

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Appendix C: Permanent Housing for Homeless Families: A Review of Opportunities and Impediments

Achieving stability in permanent housing is considered by many to be the overriding goal of the system of services for people who are homeless. Providers of service may have other important objectives tailored to the particular needs of their client population and associated with helping people to become as self-reliant as possible through employm

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Additional Questions for Children

Housing history of the child Duration of current episode of homelessness for the child New or recurrent homelessness for the child Housing instability of the child prior to homelessness With parent(s) in shelters or separated from parent(s) History of foster care Child’s appraisal of homeless situation Traumatic history of the

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Situational Variables

Precipitating factor Natural disaster or condemned housing Eviction by landlord or by foreclosure for lack of payment Immediate post-hospitalization loss of housing Immediate post-release from jail inability to find housing Loss of job Gradually increasing financial distress In and out of homelessness with short turnaround (less tha

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Endogenous Variables

Demographics Single or two-parent family Number of children Age of children (infants, pre-school, school, adolescents) Pregnancy Age of parents Social capital Education of parents Parenting ability of parents Work skills and habits Helpful informal network Prison/jail record Illegal alien History of institutionalizati

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Exogenous Variables

Area housing resource indicators: State or local eviction prevention policies Title 8 vouchers Waiting time for 202 or other public housing Local area occupancy ratio of rental housing Local ratio of low income housing rent to minimum wage Local availability of SRO housing Local availability of housing subsidies: hotel rooms Local

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. B.4: List of Exogenous, Endogenous, and Situational Variables

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. B.3: Sources of Data on Environmental Factors

Data on housing and shelters Low income housing data. The National Low Income Housing Coalition provides a report initiated by Dolbeare Cushing and updated every year or few years on the cost of rental housing at a very disaggregated level (town or county), and relates it to wages and other income. These data are essential to the understand

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. B.2: European Typology of Homelessness and Housing Exclusion (ETHOS)

Conceptual category Operational category Sub-Category Description Roofless Living in a public space (no abode) Stay in a night shelter and/or forced to spend several hours a day in a public space 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 2.3 Sleeping Rough Contacted by outreach services

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Appendix

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. References

Abi Habib, N., Black, T., Pratt, S., Safir, A., Steinbacyh, R., Triplett, T., Wang, K., the Westat Group, and Wivagg. J. (2005). NSAF Methodology Series: The 2002 Collection of Papers . Washington, DC: The Urban Institute. Babor, T.F. (1996). The classification of alcoholics: Typology theories from the 19th century to the present. Alcohol Heal

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Recommendations for Studies with Existing Data

Readily available data sources on homeless families include four longitudinal studies (Shinn et al., 1998; Bassuk et al., 1998; Rog and Guttman, 1997; SAMHSA, 2004), two in a single city (New York and Washington, DC, respectively) and two in several sites. There is also one cross-sectional study (Burt et al., 1999). The two studies in a single cit

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Recommendations for New Studies to Develop Typologies Relevant to Homeless Families

New cohort studies should be conducted with children in homeless families, with follow up until adulthood, including data on the variables listed in Appendix B.4. This is given the highest priority because damage to children, whether associated with severe poverty or homelessness, may have long-term repercussions on their emotional, social, intell

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Recommendations

Here are recommendations for two types of typological research: (1) new data collection efforts targeted at developing and validating one or more typologies; (2) studies using existing data sets.

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Conclusions

A typology of homeless families should build on the existing knowledge. Most homeless families are experiencing severe poverty and that subsidized housing is enough in the majority of instances to help them gain a stable home. There are smaller groups for whom this does not seem to work, presumably because other environmental, personal, or situati

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Validation Procedures

The validity of a classification or typology can be established in a variety of ways. The approach most frequently emphasized in clinical research is predictive validity, which refers to the ability of a classification scheme to suggest the most likely course and treatment response for a given member of a class. Another approach is construct val

Characteristics and Dynamics of Homeless Families with Children. Statistical Methods

A number of statistical procedures are available to identify homogeneous subtypes for the development of empirical typologies. Important considerations in the selection of a statistical procedure are the size of the data set, the value of classifying all cases, the relative importance of working with smaller rather than larger numbers of subtype

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