Stephen Metraux

Public service reductions associated with placement of homeless persons with severe mental illness in supportive housing

Abstract This article assesses the impact of public investment in supportive housing for homeless persons with severe mental disabilities. Data on 4,679 people placed in such housing in New York City between 1989 and 1997 were merged with data on the utilization of public shelters, public and private hospitals, and correctional facilities. A series of matched controls who were homeless but not placed in housing were similarly tracked. Regression results reveal that persons placed in supportive housing experience marked reductions in shelter use, hospitalizations, length of stay per hospitalization, and time incarcerated. Before placement, homeless people with severe mental illness used about

Family Dynamics, Housing, and Recurring Homelessness Among Women in New York City Homeless Shelters:

40,451 per person per year in services (1999 dollars). Placement was associated with a reduction in services use of

Assessing Homeless Population Size Through the Use of Emergency and Transitional Shelter Services in 1998: Results from the Analysis of Administrative Data from Nine US Jurisdictions

16,281 per housing unit per year. Annual unit costs are estimated at

One-year rates of public shelter utilization by race/ethnicity, age, sex and poverty status for New York City (1990 and 1995) and Philadelphia (1995)

17,277, for a net cost of

The New York-New York housing initiative and use of public shelters by persons with severe mental illness

995 per unit per year over the first two years.

Where to from Here? A Policy Research Agenda Based on the Analysis of Administrative Data

This study looks at two sets of women who stayed in New York City homeless shelters in 1992—one set as part of a family and the other set as individuals—and at factors associated with an increased risk of their experiencing repeat shelter stays. Descriptive statistics and event history analysis indicate that regardless of whether the women stay in shelters with their families or by themselves, various family dynamics are associated with particular vulnerability to subsequent shelter stays, especially when the women are part of “young” families, are in households with absent children, or disclose a history of domestic violence. Exits from a shelter stay to ones own housing, on the other hand, has the strongest association with avoiding repeat shelter stays. These results suggest that family dynamics and the availability of affordable housing are two important focuses for efforts to reduce the incidence of homelessness among women.

The Impact of Welfare Reform on Public Shelter Utilization in Philadelphia: A Time-Series Analysis

Objectives. This study reports findings from the first-ever systematic enumeration of homeless population size using data previously collected from administrative records of homeless services providers in nine US jurisdictions over a one year period. As such, it provides the basis for establishing an ongoing measure of the parameters of the homeless population and for tracking related trends on the use of homeless services over time. Methods. Each participating jurisdiction collected data through its homeless services management information systems for persons and families who use emergency shelter and transitional housing. The jurisdictions organized the data by a standardized reporting format. These data form the basis for reporting homeless population size, both in raw numbers and as adjusted for each jurisdictions overall population size, as well as the rate of turnover and average annual length of stay in emergency shelters and transitional housing. Results. Individual jurisdictions had annual rates of sheltered homelessness ranging from 0.1% to 2.1% of their overall population, and 1.3% to 10.2% of their poverty population. Annual population size was 2.5 to 10.2 times greater than the point-prevalent population size. Results are broken down for adults and families. Conclusions. The prevalence of homelessness varies greatly among the jurisdictions included in this study, and possible factors for this diversity are discussed. Future reports of this nature will furnish similar series of homeless enumerations across a growing number of jurisdictions, thereby providing a basis for exploring the effects of different contextual factors on local prevalence rates of homelessness.

WAITING FOR THE WRECKING BALL Skid Row in Postindustrial Philadelphia

This study calculates public homeless shelter utilization rates by sex, race/ethnicity and age status for New York City (1990 and 1995) and Philadelphia (fiscal year 1995) to determine the relative risk for shelter use among different demographic groups in these cities. The resulting shelter utilization rates reveal large disparities among age groups and across racial/ethnic groups, as well as showing different trends in shelter utilization among the two cities. Among the results reported, the rate of shelter utilization declined by 11% in New York City over this period, while the overall utilization rate in Philadelphia has increased to where it is 40% higher than that of New York City. Children under age 5, at a rate of 0.0248, have the highest shelter utilization rate among the age groups studied and the overall rate for blacks is 2.3 times that of the overall population. And while shelter utilization rates among single men have decreased by 30% in New York City, a similar decrease has not occurred among women of early childbearing ages or among young children. Finally, policy implications related to these findings are discussed.