New Homeless Hub Articles

Behavioural interventions for preventing HIV infection in homeless or unstably-housed adults

Egbewale, Bolaji E.; Uthman, Olalekan A.; Odu, Olusola O.; Adekanmbi, Victor — 2012-02-02T11:23:09

The terms “homeless” can refer to variety of situations, such as runaway, throwaway, unaccompanied, street, and systems youth). Homeless adults constitute one of the most-at-risk of HIV because they are usually engaged in different HIV risky sexual behaviours (Baybuga 2004; de Carvalho 2006). Owing to their high personal and social risks, usually marked by human rights abuses, victimization and violence, they are more prone to HIV acquisition and transmission (Ribeiro 2001; Boivin 2005). In addition, they are less likely to seek HIV prevention counseling, test and care (Naranbhai 2011). Homeless adult do not have adequate access to social and health services, including health education, because they are marginalized and underserved (Snell 2002; Baybuga 2004).

Journal Name: Intervention Protocol

Prevalence and Risk of Homelessness Among US Veterans

2012-02-02T11:15:02

Understanding the prevalence of and risk for homelessness among veterans is prerequisite to preventing and ending homelessness among this population. Homeless veterans are at higher risk for chronic disease; understanding the dynamics of homelessness among veterans can contribute to our understanding of their health needs. Methods We obtained data on demographic characteristics and veteran status for 130,554 homeless people from 7 jurisdictions that provide homelessness services, and for the population living in poverty and the general population from the American Community Survey for those same jurisdictions. We calculated prevalence of veterans in the homeless, poverty, and general populations, and risk ratios (RR) for veteran status in these populations. Risk for homelessness, as a function of demographic characteristics and veteran status, was estimated by using multivariate regression models. Results Veterans were overrepresented in the homeless population, compared with both the general and poverty populations, among both men (RR, 1.3 and 2.1, respectively) and women (RR, 2.1 and 3.0, respectively). Veteran status and black race significantly increased the risk for homelessness for both men and women. Men in the 45- to 54-year-old age group and women in the 18- to 29-year-old age group were at higher risk compared with other ages. Conclusion Our findings confirm previous research associating veteran status with higher risk for homelessness and imply that there will be specific health needs among the aging homeless population. This study is a basis for understanding variation in rates of, and risks for, homelessness in general population groups, and inclusion of health data from US Department of Veterans Affairs records can extend these results to identifying links between homelessness and health risks.

Journal Name: Preventing Chronic Disease

The Housing Market and Canada’s Economic Recovery

2012-02-02T09:03:56

A healthy housing sector, able to meet a broad range of needs, is a vital part of the economic and social wellbeing of any community. Whether they are recent college graduates, new immigrants, or senior citizens, Canadians at various income levels and stages of life have different housing needs. Local governments have been implementing an array of initiatives to increase and preserve the supply of rental and affordable housing. Providing tax exemptions, addressing intensification and redevelopment, streamlining approvals, and exploring alternative development standards, municipalities are doing their part; but they can’t do it alone. FCM's report, The Housing Market and Canada’s Economic Recovery, is calling on the federal government to provide low-interest loans to finance new rental construction; reform the tax system to prevent the demolition of existing rental housing; and provide incentives to lower rental costs through better energy efficiency.

Organization: Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM)

Engaging the Reluctant? Service Learning, Interpersonal Contact, and Attitudes toward Homeless Individuals

Knecht, Thomas.; Martinez, Lisa M. — 2012-02-01T12:39:56

This article examines the extent to which service-learning courses affect students' attitudes and opinions. Elsewhere, we used a pre/postsurvey field experiment to demonstrate that volunteering with a homeless person tends to erode the stereotypes held by the domiciled—a confirmation of the venerable contact hypothesis. Here we use the same research design to assess whether students in service-learning courses exhibit a similar type of opinion change after spending a day with a homeless person. We find that even with limited contact a significant number of service-learning students came away from their time with homeless individuals holding fewer stereotypes and with a more nuanced perspective on the causes and consequences of homelessness. Nevertheless, working with a homeless person did have a negative effect on some students and contact generally failed to change students' views on public policy.

Journal Name: Americal Political Science Association

Tags: homeless

Next Step Financial Achievement

2012-01-30T12:53:58

This video follows the personal stories of three individuals who struggled with very low income. Heather, Kelly and Bernice share their experiences with the Next Step financial achievement program and talk about the difference it has made in their lives. In this one year journey, they discovered that in spite of very low income, they could take charge of their personal finances, achieve goals and better manage their lives. The Next Step financial achievement program is sponsored by More Than A Roof Foundation. It is regularly made available to low income tenants of More Than A Roof Housing Society.

Organization: More Than A Roof Housing Society

Tags: housing

RS-01 – Affordable Rent and Home Ownership Limits for Calgary (Revised 2012 January 16)

2012-01-26T02:19:16

Tags: housing

FF-04 – Affordable Housing in Calgary (Revised 2012)

2012-01-26T02:11:58

This document provides summary information on housing affordability, adequacy and suitability in Calgary. More detailed information can be found in The City of Calgary's Research Briefs on housing need and in Research Summary RS-01 - Affordable Rent and Home Ownership Limits for Calgary

Organization: The City of Calgary, Community and Neighbourhood Services, Social Research Unit

Tags: housing

FF-01 – City Definition of Affordable Housing (2012)

2012-01-24T02:48:46

For Calgary City Council, "affordable housing adequately suits the needs of low- and moderate- income households at costs below those generally found in the Calgary market. It may take a number of forms that exist along a continuum" including various rental options through to entry-level home ownership. Affordable housing projects are targeted to households with 65% or less of median household income in Calgary (City of Calgary, 2002: 18), meaning households with a before-tax income of less than $44,000 per year (Statistics Canada, 2007). Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has determined that for housing to be affordable, a household should not spend more than 30% of its gross income on rental shelter costs (CMHC, 1991: 4). Affordable housing initiatives in Calgary are therefore targeted to households with a gross annual household income below $44,000 that are spending 30% or more of their gross household income on shelter costs.

Organization: The City of Calgary, Community and Neighbourhood Services, Social Research Unit

Tags: housing

Youth on the Street and Youth Involved with Child Welfare: Maltreatment, Mental Health and Substance Use

Goldstein, A. L.; Amiri, T.; Vilhena, N.; Wekerle, C.; Thornton, T.; Tonmyr, L. — 2012-01-24T11:46:08

Adolescents who are homeless face a variety of adverse outcomes and are at risk for concurrent mental health symptoms and substance use. Many come to the streets with a history of maltreatment, and have left home to escape dysfunctional environments, only to find themselves exposed to additional violence on the streets. Youth involved with child welfare* face similar challenges and many are at risk of homelessness due to a lack of resources when transitioning out of the child welfare system. Existing research indicates that concurrent mental health symptoms and substance use, particularly among adolescents, is poorly understood and very challenging to address.

Organization: Child Maltreatment Section, Public Health Agency of Canada

Housing Subsidies and Homelessness: A Simple Idea

O'Flaherty, Brendan — 2012-01-24T11:24:02

Reducing homelessness is an indisputable social good, and housing subsidies offer one way to do so. However, subsidies come in many different varieties and are intricately bound up with economic and social policies. This paper, written by one of North America’s leading urban economists, cuts through the tangle and argues that the simplest approach is the best. The ideal way to deter people from harmful acts is to reward them for abstaining. Thus, to combat homelessness, governments should offer housing allowances to people for every night they are not homeless. This optimal homelessness-reducing home allowance (OHRHA) is open to adjustment to suit individual circumstances and the effects of homelessness on different demographics. It is meant to reduce homelessness by aligning individual and societal incentives, forcing people to bear the consequences or realize the benefits that their actions impose on others. The author explores methods for financing OHRHA, examines means for tailoring it to meet the diverse needs of the homeless and discusses the policy’s effect on urban housing markets, all while comparing and contrasting the proposal to existing homelessness-reduction measures in Alberta, Canada and the US.

Organization: University of Calgary; The School of Public Policy

Tags: homelessness

Trouble For Rent

2012-01-23T10:05:32

Leaky roofs. Mouldy walls. Broken doors and windows. Would you want to live in such a place? Probably not. But some tenants of one of Canada's largest landlords have had to endure those conditions for years. Now, Marketplace is exposing renters' horror stories about a multimillion-dollar company that just hasn't seemed to care. In "Trouble for Rent," Tom Harrington meets tenants of a national rental company and uncovers a disturbing history of unhealthy homes, poor maintenance and corporate callousness. On hidden camera we hear what tenants are told when shopping for a new apartment and with the help of experts we put apartments to the test. What we find is troubling so we go looking for answers from the people at the top.

Organization: CBC Marketplace

Tuberculosis among drug users and homeless persons: impact of voluntary X-ray investigation on active case finding

2012-01-23T09:53:16

Illicit drug use and homelessness are major contributors to the incidence of tuberculosis (TB) among inhabitants of major cities. Objective The primary objective of this study was to establish a sustainable low-threshold chest X-ray screening programme for pulmonary TB among illicit drug users and homeless persons and to integrate this into the existing public health programme for active case finding. A secondary objective was to estimate the coverage of the programme, assess other risk factors and determine TB rates and treatment outcome in these two groups. Methods Illicit drug users and homeless persons were asked to voluntarily participate in an X-ray screening programme. The coverage of the intervention, total number and characteristics of cases and the follow-up of treatment were assessed. Results A total of 4,529 chest radiographs were made from 3,477 persons, of whom 66% were homeless and 34% were illicit drug users, between May 2002 and April 2007. Coverage for screening once every 2 years ranged between 18 and 26%. Thirty-nine TB cases (14 drug users, 25 homeless persons) were identified, representing 8.7% of the total case load of 448 notified cases of pulmonary TB in Frankfurt during this period. Among the drug users, human immunodeficiency virus coinfection (10/14) seemed to play a key role in the development of TB. The case-finding rate of 861/100,000 radiographs (1,122/100,000 persons) is as high as that in routine contact investigations (1,078/100,000). Among all individuals with TB, 76% completed treatment. Conclusion A novel targeted TB screening approach with voluntary radiographic examination of illicit drug users and homeless persons can be integrated into the existing public TB prevention programme and provides a high case-finding rate.

Journal Name: Infection

The Utility of Mentoring Homeless Adolescents: A Pilot Study

2012-01-23T09:46:48

Despite the intuitive appeal and popularity of mentoring programs, mentoring has shown only limited success for positively impacting children’s psychosocial functioning. Furthermore, we were not able to identify a study that examined the potential utility of mentoring for homeless adolescents. Objective: The purpose of this pilot study was to examine the impact of mentoring among a group of homeless adolescents who were also receiving substance abuse treatment. Methods: This pilot study examined the impact of mentoring among homeless adolescents (n = 90) between the ages of 14 and 20 years who also received substance abuse treatment. A longitudinal design was used in which adolescents were assessed at baseline, 3 months, and following the completion of treatment at 6 months postbaseline. Results: Findings showed that adolescents with a history of physical or sexual abuse attended more mentoring sessions. Also, mentoring in addition to treatment was associated with a decrease in problem consequences associated with substance use. However, more mentoring with fewer treatment sessions was associated with an increase in internalizing behaviors. Only these two outcomes were associated with mentoring. Conclusions and Scientific Significance: While not providing resounding support for mentoring, this study suggests that examining the mentor/mentee relationship may be a fruitful line of future research given that significant variability among the mentor/mentee pairs was noted for some outcomes of interest.

Journal Name: The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse

Childhood Obesity and Dental Caries in Homeless Children

Chiu, Sheau-Huey; DiMarco, Marguerite A.; Prokop, Jessica L. — 2012-01-23T09:42:56

Childhood obesity and dental caries are increasing epidemics, especially among children who are living below the poverty level. This study was conducted to determine the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and caries in homeless children. Methods A secondary data analysis with a correlational design was used. A convenience sample of 157 children was recruited from a homeless shelter. Results Pearson’s and partial correlations were used to explore the relationships among age, BMI, and caries. Most of the children were girls and were African American. Slightly more than half of the children were overweight (19.7%) or obese (30.6%) and had caries (50.3%). Significant positive correlations between age and BMI (p = .03) as well as between age and caries (p = .003) were found. As BMI increased, so did caries (p = .08). Discussion Consistent with reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, homeless children had higher BMI and caries rates than the national averages. Although a definitive conclusion between obesity and dental caries cannot be drawn, these two health issues are important areas for all pediatric health care providers to address at every visit.

Journal Name: Journal of Pediatric Health Care

Mobilizing homeless youth for HIV prevention: a social network analysis of the acceptability of a face-to-face and online social networking intervention

2012-01-23T09:39:49

The objective of the study is to use social network analysis to examine the acceptability of a youth-led, hybrid face-to-face and online social networking HIV prevention program for homeless youth.Seven peer leaders (PLs) engaged face-to-face homeless youth (F2F) in the creation of digital media projects (e.g. You Tube videos). PL and F2F recruited online youth (OY) to participate in MySpace and Facebook communities where digital media was disseminated and discussed. The resulting social networks were assessed with respect to size, growth, density, relative centrality of positions and homophily of ties. Seven PL, 53 F2F and 103 OY created two large networks. After the first 50 F2F youth participated, online networks entered a rapid growth phase. OY were among the most central youth in these networks. Younger aged persons and females were disproportionately connected to like youth. The program appears highly acceptable to homeless youth. Social network analysis revealed which PL were the most critical to the program and which types of participants (younger youth and females) may require additional outreach efforts in the future.

Journal Name: Health Education Research

A Prospective Study of Childhood and Adolescent Antecedents of Homelessness among a Community Population of African Americans

2012-01-23T09:36:44

Much is known about contemporaneous correlates of homelessness from studies of homeless individuals. However, few studies have prospectively examined early antecedents and prevalence of homelessness in community populations. We use data from a 35-year study of a community population of African Americans to examine relationships between homelessness and prior structural, family, school, and behavioral influences. Nearly 22% of males and 16% of females reported homelessness between ages 15 and 42, providing a rare estimate within an African American urban community population. In bivariate analyses, lower school bonds, depressed mood, violent behavior, and running away in adolescence are predictive for both males and females. Teen parenting and angry mood are unique influences for females, while for males, poor first grade classroom conduct and adolescent substance use are unique risks. In multivariate analyses, poor classroom conduct and weaker school bonds predict homelessness among males, while teen parenting does so for females. Running away before age 15 is strongly predictive of later homelessness for both males and females. These results reveal the relative influence of multiple, interrelated early risks on homelessness and confirm our hypothesis that factors linked to other poor outcomes also relate to homelessness, underscoring another benefit to early prevention efforts.

Journal Name: Journal of Urban Health

Homelessness down but seen rising anew: report

Simpson, Ian — 2012-01-19T11:44:49

U.S. homelessness slipped 1 percent from 2009 to 2011, but the sluggish economy left more poor people struggling to pay for housing and just a step away from shelters, an advocacy group said in a new study on Wednesday. The drop to 636,017 homeless people last year could prove short-lived, since it was likely due to $1.5 billion in federal aid that will run out this year, the National Alliance to End Homelessness said in its report. "The fact that homelessness dropped in the middle of a downturn is counter-intuitive," Nan Roman, the Alliance's president and chief executive, told a news conference. The federal aid, part of an economic stimulus package, "seems to have worked," she said. The Alliance, which groups public, private and non-profit organizations, said the biggest decrease in homelessness was among veterans, with the number falling 11 percent to 67,495 in 2011. The overall decline in homelessness, however small, may not last long. Current trends point to the number of homeless people rising about 5 percent through 2013, Peter Witte, a researcher who compiled the study, told reporters. In one indicator of possible trouble, the number of poor households that spent more than half their incomes on rent -- defined as "severely housing cost burdened" -- rose 6 percent to 6.2 million, the report said. The number of people living "doubled up" with friends, relatives or others jumped 13 percent to 6.8 million. "Doubling up" is the usual step before people move into shelters, Witte said.

Journal Name: Reuters

The State of Homelessness in America 2012

2012-01-19T10:57:31

The State of Homelessness in America 2012 examines homelessness between 2009 and 2011, a period of economic downturn in the nation. The report shows that despite the bad economy, homelessness decreased by 1 percent during this period. The decrease was likely due to a significant investment of federal resources to prevent homelessness and quickly re-house people who did become homeless. The Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) was a $1.5 billion federal effort to prevent a recession-related increase in homelessness. It was built upon ground-breaking work at the federal level and in jurisdictions across the nation to improve the homelessness system by adopting evidence-based, cost effective interventions. In 2010, its first year of operation, it assisted nearly 700,000 at-risk and homeless people. This report provides evidence that it was successful in achieving its goal of preventing a significant increase in homelessness. Despite the fact that the number of homeless people was essentially unchanged between 2009 and 2011, there is much reason for concern. As this report points out, economic and demographic indicators linked to homelessness continue to be troubling. Homelessness is a lagging indicator, and the effects of the poor economy on the problem are escalating and are expected to continue to do so over the next few years. The resources provided by HPRP have run out in many communities and the program will sunset entirely in the fall of 2012; despite the need and proven effectiveness these resources have not been replaced. Debt and deficit reduction at the federal level have begun to shrink assistance available to the most vulnerable. In the year since the data in this report was collected (January 2011), there have already been reports that the number of homeless people is increasing. So while holding the line on homelessness between 2009 and 2011 was a major accomplishment of federal investment and local innovation, the failure to sustain this early recipe for success threatens to undermine progress now and in the future.

Organization: National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH)

2.28 The Homeless Hub Newsletter - January 18, 2012

2012-01-18T12:18:53

2.28 The Homeless Hub Newsletter - January 18, 2012

Tags: newsletters

Poverty: A Huge Cost to Our Health-care System

Yarema, Megan — 2012-01-17T09:57:24

Today the premiers meet with the federal government to discuss the future of the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) and Canada Social Transfer (CST) which support provincial health and social systems. The transfers are critical funding streams that can improve the dismal welfare rates, long hospital wait times, and limited child care spaces that plague all provinces. As governments are expected to do more with less, it is important to talk about addressing poverty. Poverty equals poor health and costs society billions of dollars each year, making it a key component of any conversation on health and social programs. Poverty and health go hand-in-hand. People in poverty are more likely to use the health care system because of physical and mental health issues or illness, and be more likely to face an early death. Stress, poor nutrition, inadequate housing, and unstable social environments are a few reasons for this. Known as the social determinants of health, these issues can lead to increased pressure on the health care system. Current healthcare spending that is associated with poverty is estimated at approximately 20 per cent. This fact demonstrates the weight that socio-economic disparities have on health systems and the importance of discussing both the future of the CST and CHT together. While the debate on the future of the CHT has garnered media attention in the past few weeks, little commentary is surfacing on the funding of the CST, which directly impacts programs that benefit people with low-income.

Journal Name: Huffington Post Canada

Impacts of a Peer Support Program for Street-Involved Youth - Homeless Hub Research Summary Series

The Homeless Hub — 2012-01-12T03:55:35

Homelessness is a growing problem in urban centers, and Aboriginal people are overrepresented within the homeless population in Canada. Youth are the most vulnerable group of homeless people, largely at risk for gang recruitment, prostitution and exploitation. Violence and abuse at home is often the reason youth leave home and become street-involved, and their victimization continues on the street. In the absence of positive role models, street-involved youth often turn to alcohol and drugs as a way to cope with negative experiences. Research has shown that street-involved youth benefit from interventions designed to improve their adaptive coping skills.

Tags: youth

Closing the gap between EI and welfare

Monsebraaten, Laurie — 2012-01-03T04:29:53

Tiffany McDowell was thrilled to land a customer service position at an Oshawa technology firm last January, several months after her daughter’s first birthday. The job, which required no night work and was located on a bus route near her daughter’s babysitter, seemed like a perfect fit for the financially strapped single mom who had worked in a book store and a call centre before Alexandra was born. But her hopes of climbing out of poverty were dashed last July when IQT Solutions went bankrupt and McDowell discovered she didn’t have enough insurable hours to qualify for employment insurance. “It was a real blow to lose that job,” she says. “And without EI, I had no alternative but welfare.” McDowell, 25, is among a growing number of area workers who either aren’t covered by EI or don’t qualify and could benefit from a proposed “Jobseeker’s Loan” designed to bridge the gap between employment insurance and welfare, says social policy researcher Michael Mendelson. Last year, more than 700,000 unemployed Canadians were either not covered by EI or ineligible, he says. Across the GTA, only about one-quarter of unemployed workers received EI. Under Mendelson’s proposal, income-tested forgivable loans would be available in bi-weekly payments of almost $700 for six months. The loans would be repaid based on total earnings for the year the money was received — they would be completely forgivable for those with incomes below about $10,000 and fully repayable for those earning about $71,000. At about $51,000, recipients would have to repay half of the Jobseeker’s Loan. All adults looking for work would be eligible for the full loan of almost $9,000 every five years and it would could cost the federal government about $1 billion annually. “I hope people will explore it and think about it as an alternative to welfare, which is a very oppressive, paternalistic and stigmatizing program,” says Mendelson, who came up with the scheme with colleague Ken Battle as part of a larger review of EI released in November by the University of Toronto’s Mowat Centre. “It would fill a large hole in Canada’s income security system, at a reasonable cost,” he adds.

Journal Name: The Toronto Star

Cuts could close path out of homelessness

Kennedy, Brendan — 2012-01-03T10:02:37

As a proud Newfoundlander, David Oliver naturally turns to maritime metaphors to describe his life. So when he talks about the role the Downsview Dells men’s shelter played in his transformation from a homeless alcoholic who cycled in and out of jail to the proud, happy and life-loving man he is today, he can’t help himself. “The Dells was my ship to the mainland,” says the 41-year-old former construction worker, whose fridge-like frame would be intimidating if it were not attached to his goofy, disarming grin. “Without the Dells, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today … it saved my life.” Where Oliver is at today is a world away from where he was in September 2010, when he walked into the Salvation Army’s emergency shelter in Brampton after his latest — and he hopes last — stint in jail. Oliver was broken. He had used up the last of his family’s sympathy and had nowhere else to go. Today he’s coming up on 15 months clean and sober, having moved steadily from “the Dells” — a city-run shelter in North York for men battling addictions — to the graduated system of transitional housing provided by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, where residents earn more independence and responsibility the longer they stay clean. Oliver talks excitedly about launching a home-renovation business in the near future. He already has sleek new business cards — smartly designed with a cartoon caricature of himself in a yellow hard hat and blue overalls — which he uses as a motivational tool to remind him of his goals. “My next step has to be to step away from the system and let someone else come in behind me.” But if Mayor Rob Ford’s 2012 budget is passed as it is proposed, the path Oliver took to lift himself out of homelessness and addiction simply won’t be an option for those who follow him. For one, Downsview Dells — the life-saving ship to which Oliver attributes much of his recovery — may be sunk. It’s one of three small-but-specialized city-run shelters slated for closure to save a total of $1.9 million (closing the Dells alone will save $652,000). At the same time, the 11 houses St. Vincent de Paul rents from Toronto Community Housing — including Oliver’s current home — are among the 706 to be sold on the open market to help the city’s struggling housing agency work down a $650 million repair backlog. (The sale must still be approved by city council and the province.) On top of that, a major cut to the affordable housing budget means the city will build dramatically fewer rent-geared-to-income homes over the next few years, while the ever-growing affordable housing wait list breaks new records every month. (There are now more than 81,000 households on the list, another record.) The combination of cuts and the TCHC sell-off could create a perfect storm to worsen homelessness in the city, say housing experts, making success stories like Oliver’s much harder to come by, if not impossible. “It really is a one-two punch,” says Michael Shapcott, director of affordable housing and social innovation at the Wellesley Institute, a non-profit think-tank for urban health. “We’re choking off the housing options for low-income Torontonians, we’re shutting down the shelters that are a necessary part of the process to help people move from chronic homelessness into housing, and two of those sets of policies together really create a vicious loop.”

Journal Name: Toronto Star

“Breaking the Day Up”: Homeless People's Strategies to Adopt Urban Public Space

Wilkeneit, Katja — 2011-09-27T01:06:11

Homelessness is a widespread phenomenon in urban areas, particularly in large cities. Alongside other sciences, social anthropology has been concerned with homelessness and its many aspects characteristics and facets. Particularly in the USA many publications concerning homelessness have been published since this topic began to arouse public interest in the 1980s (Glasser and Bridgeman 1999: 1-2, Jencks 1994: 1, Gruber 2007: 4). Besides the causes of homelessness, homeless people's daily routine and way of living in certain local environments and the importance and the development of social networks have been studied (Glasser and Bridgman 1999).

Journal Name: Cultural Contrasts in Dublin: A Montage of Ethnographic Studies

USICH issues report to congress on a common Federal vocabulary to describe housing status

US Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) — 2011-06-28T12:31:09

At the request of Congress, USICH hosted a day long forum in January to discuss the benefits, challenges, and next steps for creating and implementing a common federal vocabulary and data standard on housing status. Today, USICH has released a summary report to Congress based on the outcome of this meeting which included the active participation of 85 attendees from federal agencies, Congress, and advocacy groups as well as researchers, homeless service providers, and people who have experienced homelessness. The report to Congress released today describes the structure of the January event, summarizes the feedback received at that meeting, and reflects on what we think can be done to continue working towards a common vocabulary and data standard that will better inform our work to end homelessness. The meeting was requested by Congress to discuss a June 2010 report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) entitled Homelessness: A Common Vocabulary Could Help Agencies Collaborate and Collect More Consistent Data.

Organization: U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

Tags: USICH; vocabulary; housing; GAO; Congress