Search

As the nation moves into the 2016 presidential election cycle grappling with multiple military engagements, a large and growing veterans population and problems in the Veterans Administration, a group of [...]

This study examines the relationships between cumulative victimization that began during childhood (witnessing intimate partner violence [IPV], physical abuse by a caregiver, and sexual victimization), adolescent IPV victimization, homelessness, and depression symptoms within a sample of 206 urban adolescent mothers. We used cluster analysis to identify five profiles of cumulative childhood victimization, and explored the extent to which adolescent IPV victimization and homelessness mediated the relationships between these clusters and participants' current depression symptoms. Overall, we found that a significant portion of the effect of cumulative childhood victimization on current depression was explained by IPV victimization and homelessness, indicating that both are important mediators of childhood violence exposure within this high-risk sample of young women., Author(s): Angie C. Kennedy[sup.1] , Deborah Bybee[sup.2] , Megan R. Greeson[sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) School of Social Work, Michigan State University, 655 Auditorium Road, Baker Hall, Room 254, 48824, East [...]

This article explores the links between urban restructuring, homelessness, and collective action in Toronto in the 1980s and 1990s. In Toronto, as elsewhere, urban restructuring at this time comprised a [...]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.09.034 Byline: Marah A. Curtis (a), Hope Corman (b)(c), Kelly Noonan (b)(c), Nancy E. Reichman (d) Abstract: This study exploits an exogenous health shock -- the birth of a child with a severe health condition that is considered by the medical community to be random -- to investigate the effect of that shock on the family's housing situation. We use population-based data from an urban birth cohort study in the U.S. that oversampled non-marital births, resulting in a relatively disadvantaged sample that may be particularly susceptible to the effects of adverse life events. The health conditions were recorded in the infants' hospital medical records and coded by a pediatric consultant to capture conditions that are considered both severe and random. Seven different housing outcomes in the domains of quality, crowding, and stability were assessed from maternal interviews and in-home assessments when the children were 3 years old. We found that poor child health increases the likelihood of both overcrowding and homelessness and that it may also increase the likelihood of having inadequate utilities and generally poor housing quality. The effect sizes ranged from 1 to 17 percentage points, depending on the measure of poor child health and housing outcome. Author Affiliation: (a) Boston University, Boston, MA, United States (b) Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ, United Statesa (c) National Bureau of Economic Research, New York, NY, United States (d) Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ, United States

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.04.013 Byline: Helena Tunstall (a), Kate Pickett (a), Sarah Johnsen (b) Abstract: People that move home within developed countries report, on average, better health than non-movers. Pregnant women, new mothers and infants are particularly mobile, but the limited evidence regarding the relationship between their mobility and health suggests they may not conform to the 'healthy migrant' effect. This paper examines the relationship between mobility and health among these groups in the UK, using logistic regression to analyse cross-sectional data for 18,197 families in the Millennium Cohort Study wave one. It compares health status variables among mobile and non-mobile families; describes mobile families' socio-demographic characteristics; explores associations between health outcomes, reasons for residential moves, and experiences of homelessness; and assesses the association between mobility and health care utilisation, social support and residential satisfaction. The paper concludes that mobile pregnant women, new mothers and infants do have poor health outcomes in comparison to non-movers, but this is primarily explained by their socio-demographic characteristics and the negative circumstances associated with a minority of their moves. Families that moved during pregnancy and infancy had worse self-rated health and depression among mothers, and lower birth weight and higher risk of accidents among infants, than non-movers. Mothers in mobile families were younger and had lower levels of education and owner-occupation than non-movers. After adjustment for socio-demographic characteristics mobility was weakly and non-significantly associated with most health variables with the exception of self-rated health and depression among mothers who moved for negative reasons (such as relationship breakdown or problems with neighbours), or had been homeless since birth. After adjustment mobile families had lower levels of most measures of health care utilisation compared to non-movers, but mothers did not report less frequent social contacts, and those that moved during infancy for positive reasons (such as wanting a better home or neighbourhood) had greater satisfaction with home and area. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Health Sciences, University of York, United Kingdom (b) Centre for Housing Policy, University of York, United Kingdom

This article explores the emergence of neo-liberal housing policy and programmes in the United States, focusing in particular on the rise of social service initiatives targeting what is known as 'chronic homelessness'. These initiatives are notable for the ways in which they privilege long-vilified populations for immediate placement into housing with no social or medical services required. While this represents a significant break from social service protocols that previously demanded compliance with service requirements, the article argues that understanding chronic homelessness initiatives as economic rather than social programmes reveals the ways in which they enable the reproduction of the same neo-liberal conditions that produce housing insecurity and deprivation. The article concludes by reframing housing issues in terms of racial subordination, which suggests that, in the neo-liberal context, social abandonment and economic investment may persist side by side. Keywords: neo-liberalism; social policy; Foucault; biopolitics; state racism; homelessness. DOI: 10.1080/03085141003620139

This paper presents the results of a research project to understand how a major technology adoption project is taken up in the social setting of Calgary's three major homeless shelters. An understanding of how technology is used 'on the ground' and how it relates to the project's goals is the key contribution of this research. The results of interviews with clients at the homeless shelters and shelter staff provide the empirical data for an analysis of the major issues concerning the actual and intended use of this Smart Communities project. The research project is influenced by institutional ethnography, which looks at the role of texts in coordinating social relations. This article suggests that information technology could be seen as a text 'superpower' in coordinating social relations among socially 'at risk' people in particular. It concludes that more transparent dialogue is required oil how actions are concerted by information technology. Keywords: sociology of technology: smart communities, information technology: homelessness; ethnography 10.1177/0162243908329568

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8500.2007.00532.x Byline: Bianca McKinney (1), Darren Halpin (2) Keywords: insider/outsider model; pressure group theory; homelessness Abstract: The insider/outsider model, first developed in the 1970s by Wyn Grant in the United Kingdom, is perhaps the most common analytical device deployed by Australian scholars in making sense of pressure or interest group behaviour. The British literature has since witnessed a high level of debate, critique and refinement of the original model, and we argue this also adds value to the discussion of group life in Australia. This article operationalises and compares two insider/outsider models commonly used to make sense of the public policy advocacy of pressure groups: (i) the conventional or orthodox models of insider/outsider and (ii) the so-called 'Aberdeen' insider/outsider model. It is argued that the latter model is more analytically powerful than the current understanding of insider and outsider pressure groups; that ideology is less of a determining factor in the ascription of status than the existing understanding implies; and that the Aberdeen model is applicable in the Australian context. These arguments are sustained via the examination of a case study of the policy advocacy of two social service groups in Western Australia during the State Homelessness Taskforce in 2001: the Western Australian Council of Social Service and the Tenants Advice Service of Western Australia. Author Affiliation: (1)Edith Cowan University (2)Edith Cowan University and The Robert Gordon University

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2006.11.003 Byline: John Fantuzzo, Staci Perlman Keywords: Multiple Logistic Regression Analyses; Out-of-home placement; Maltreatment; Mediating effects Abstract: Increased national attention has underscored the importance of promoting educational well-being for children who have been placed in out-of-home care. The present study, informed by a developmental epidemiology framework, examined the unique impact of out-of-home placement and the mediating effects of child maltreatment and homelessness on the academic achievement and school adjustment of an entire cohort of second grade children in a large urban school district. Data on birth risks, placement history, child maltreatment, and homelessness from birth through second grade were integrated across municipal agencies for over 11,000 second grade students. Multiple Logistic Regression analyses demonstrate that children with a history of out-of-home placement were at increased risk for poor literacy and science achievement controlling for demographics and birth risks. These children also evidenced significantly higher levels of behavior problems and school suspensions than children with no out-of-home placement history. Maltreatment and homelessness were found to have significant mediating effects on the relationship between out-of-home placement and children's educational well-being. Implications for policy and practice were discussed. Author Affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, USA Article History: Received 11 September 2006; Revised 3 November 2006; Accepted 15 November 2006

This article explores a metaview of the many faces of homelessness. It analyzes an evolutionary meaning of home and suggests that ever-complexifying life conditions influence how societies enforce conformity to the status quo of homefulness. It goes on to describe how homelessness might be reframed as a complex adaptive form of survival for diversity generators who cannot or will not conform to the status quo. The article proposes an integral framework on which intervention strategies could be structured to provide evolutionary, appropriate, and flexible approaches to homelessness. KEYWORDS: Complexity, evolution, homelessness, integral interventions, maladaption.

The collaborative family program development (CFPD) model, a collaborative research-based approach to creating community-based programs for families, is presented. The nature and complexities of a collaborative program development stance, the unique contribution to community-based program development offered by a family systems focus, and the 10 steps in the CFPD approach are described.

[This article argues that homelessness is a violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms, including the right to liberty and security of the person, the right to freedom from discrimination, [...]

IN RECENT YEARS, A PATTERN HAS EMERGED, A SEEMINGLY SELF-EVIDENT TREND toward restricting, regulating, and removing from public view persons commonly referred to categorically as 'the homeless.' I first encountered [...]

On Monday, July 14, 1828, Dora Wordsworth, her father William Wordsworth, and their friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge, traveling companions for several weeks, came upon a Jewish family while walking along [...]

As a psychiatry resident, I worked at a community service agency in Los Angeles, treating chronically homeless patients with serious mental illness and substance use disorders (SUD) as they transitioned [...]

Poor people have long been stigmatized and blamed for their situation. According to theory about stigma and about inequality-legitimating ideologies, homeless people should be stigmatized even more severely than the 'generic poor.' Recent research suggests that the opposite may be true, but the data used in comparing attitudes toward homeless and other poor people have not been strictly comparable. Thus the conclusions that can be drawn are limited. Using a vignette experiment designed to directly compare attitudes toward a homeless and a domiciled poor man and to compare the effects of being labeled homeless with those of being labeled mentally ill, we find that (1) the homeless man is blamed no less than the domiciled man and generally is stigmatized more severely; (2) the strength of the stigma attached to the 'homelessness' label equals that for mental hospitalization; and (3) the stigmas of homelessness and mental hospitalization are independent of one another. Thus, in addition to the hardships of the homeless condition itself, homeless people suffer stigmatization by their fellow citizens. The results also suggest that the robust tendency to blame the disadvantaged for their predicament holds true for modern homelessness as well.

A central element of community response to controversial human service facilities is the socio-spatial construction of stigma. This paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding the constitution and role of stigma in community rejection of human services, particularly those associated with homelessness and HIV/AIDS. Three facets of stigma concerning homelessness and HIV/AIDS (non-productivity, dangerousness, and personal culpability) are offered as a way of understanding the rising tide of community rejection toward human service facilities. Key words - socio-spatial stigmatization, homelessness, HIV/AIDS