Shelter Exit Research Articles

Understanding Mechanisms Driving Family Homeless Shelter Use and Child Mental Health

Homeless shelters throughout the U.S. are overcrowded and under-resourced. Families with children face substantial barriers to timely, successful shelter exit, and prolonged shelter stays threaten child mental health. This community-based system dynamics study explored barriers to timely, successful shelter exit and feedback mechanisms driving length of stay and child mental health risk. Group model building – a participatory systems science tool – and key informant interviews were conducted with clients (N = 37) and staff (N = 6) in three family homeless shelters in a Midwestern region. Qualitative content analysis with emergent coding identified key themes feedback loops. Findings indicated overcrowding delayed successful shelter exit; longer stays exacerbated crowding and stress in a vicious cycle. Furthermore, longer stays exacerbated child risk for mental disorder both directly and indirectly via crowding and caregiver stress. Capacity constraints limited families served, while contributing to ongoing unmet need. Future research should investigate the roles of these dynamic feedback relationships in the persistent vulnerability of homeless families. Service design should prioritize interventions that alleviate crowding and subsequent threats to mental health such as private or scattered-site shelter accommodations, affordable child care, and homelessness prevention to facilitate successful shelter exit and mitigate child mental health risk.

Why Do Homeless Families Exit and Return the Homeless Shelter? Factors Affecting the Risk of Family Homelessness in Salt Lake County (Utah, United States) as a Case Study.

Previous quantitative research on family homelessness has addressed a question of why some households become homeless. However, why some homeless families return the shelter to repeat their homelessness has not been explored well. This study aims at providing a comprehensive insight into the dynamics of homeless families by identifying the physical, social, and economic characteristics of a homeless family affecting the likelihood of their decision to stay, exit, and return the shelter. The relationships of factors with shelter exit and return were examined using Kaplan-Meier estimates of survival times and Cox Proportional Hazard regression analysis. This study employs a sample of 2348 historical records for 1462 homeless families registered to the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) database between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2017. The results indicate that structural factors such as subsidized housing program enrollment during a homeless episode and prior income play a significant role in reducing the risks of shelter exit and return rather than physical characteristics of a homeless family. Additionally, results show that variations in prior residence and exit destination of homeless families serve as factors determining the length of their shelter stay and the likelihood to return to the shelter. Integration of both shelter exit and return analysis results make policymakers and urban planners think about developing policies for coordination of housing and economic stability to address family homelessness.

Differences between homeless women and men before and after the transition from shelter to community living: A longitudinal analysis.

Social quality is the extent to which people are able to participate in social relationships under conditions which enhance their well‐being, capacities and potential and enables them to shape their own circumstances and contribute to societal development. We assessed whether women in homeless shelters differed from men on social quality factors that constitute the quality of their daily life and whether factor scores changed at a different rate for women and men after shelter exit. Data were collected as part of a randomised controlled trial. In 18 shelters across the Netherlands, 183 participants were recruited between December 2010 and December 2012 and followed for 9 months. Adults were eligible if they were about to move from shelter to (supported) independent housing and their shelter stay had been shorter than 14 months. At baseline, women were significantly younger than men. They were more likely to have children, to have minor children staying with them, to be lower educated, to be unemployed and to have been victimised than men. Women had used more services and reported lower self‐esteem, less satisfaction with health and empowerment and higher psychological distress. They were less likely than men to have used alcohol excessively or cannabis. We found no significant differences between women and men in changes over time on the social quality factors. As women were disadvantaged at baseline compared to men regarding many factors, we concluded that women in homeless shelters are a particularly vulnerable group. Moreover, an opportunity remains for shelter services to improve women's social quality during and after their shelter stay.

An Eight State Study on the Relationships Among Domestic Violence Shelter Services and Residents’ Self-Efficacy and Hopefulness

Survivors of intimate partner violence have myriad reasons why they turn to domestic violence shelter programs. While all are seeking immediate safety and feel a pressing need to leave their homes to obtain it, safety is rarely the only issue survivors are grappling with upon shelter entry. Other concerns are particular to each person’s history and circumstances, and include but are not limited to employment, counseling, social support, health care, addiction recovery services, immigration help, housing, and services for their children. The current study involved secondary analysis of survey data completed at two points in time by 565 shelter residents. The original research involved 215 domestic violence programs across eight states in the U.S., and surveys were completed by shelter residents shortly after they arrived in shelter and again as they were close to exiting. Results confirmed that survivors had numerous needs in addition to safety when entering shelter. Residents’ overall rating of how helpful their stay at shelter had been for them was predicted by how much help they had received across their presenting needs, as well as how they were treated by staff. The amount of help received, as well as treatment by staff, also related to survivors’ hopefulness at shelter exit, as well as the extent to which they felt better able to do things on their own. The study findings provide further evidence that domestic violence shelter staff assist residents with a variety of complex needs in addition to safety, and that this assistance is related to positive outcomes for survivors.

The Role of PTSD and Length of Shelter Stay in Battered Women's Severity of Reabuse after Leaving Shelter

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with significant morbidity, including high rates of reabuse even after women have taken steps to achieve safety. This study evaluated the roles of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity and length of shelter stay in the severity of reabuse in 103 IPV victims over a six-month period after leaving a battered women's shelter. Results suggest that the length of shelter stay is inversely related to reabuse severity after leaving shelter. Additionally, more severe PTSD symptoms on shelter exit were associated with greater reabuse severity after leaving shelter. Furthermore, additional study findings support prior research suggesting that the emotional numbing symptoms of PTSD are a significant risk factor for reabuse among IPV victims after leaving shelter.

Individual homelessness: Entries, exits, and policy

Homelessness is part of the lives of many people. But almost no one is homeless for all or most of his or her life. The median shelter homeless spell is well under a month, and even “chronic homelessness” officially entails spells of a year or so. I model homelessness as part of people’s lives in a dynamic stochastic framework in continuous time. I can explain many empirical regularities with a parsimonious model: for instance, why the last addresses of homeless people are concentrated in a few low-rent neighborhoods, why homeless entries are hard to predict, why recidivism is common and past homelessness is a good predictor of future homelessness, why some groups recidivate more often than others, why the hazard rate for shelter exit is single-peaked, why effective homelessness prevention programs do not alter the average length of homeless spells. I also examine policy. The optimal homelessness prevention program is Pigouvian and starkly simple. With an optimal prevention program in place, optimal shelter quality maximizes a simple and intuitive expression, and insurance programs always raise social welfare. Most of the previous economics literature about homelessness has been static, but most literature about homelessness outside economics has been dynamic. This paper tries to bring the two strands of literature closer together.

Stability in the Social Support Networks of Homeless Families in Shelter: Findings From a Study of Families in a Faith-Based Shelter Program

The following article outlines a longitudinal study tracking changes of the social support networks of 28 homeless families in shelter. Weekly changes in support networks of homeless mothers were tracked including 482 dyadic ties between mothers and supportive persons. Findings suggested that informal social support and persons who provided emotional support were significantly more stable forms of support in the mothers' lives throughout their shelter stay. Time was found to be a significant predictor of financial well-being and housing stability at shelter exit, but characteristics of the supportive ties were not. Implications for family social work and research practice are presented.

The Factors Affecting the Shelter Exit of Homeless Women

The Factors Affecting the Shelter Exit of Homeless Women

Battered Women’s Process of Leaving

This study is a follow-up investigation of the career and life experiences of battered women two years after shelter exit. Using consensual qualitative research, we interviewed 6 women from our original sample of 13 regarding their career and life adjustments and future aspirations. Results indicated that participants generally reported both internal and external barriers to their career goals and were dissatisfied with their current housing. In addition, women typically desired education and career advancement with preferred careers in the helping and service fields. Findings imply that long after women leave the shelter and their abusive relationships they will need the continued support of vocational psychologists to provide career assessment and counseling with focus on long-term career and educational opportunities that are commensurate with their chosen fields of interest. Longitudinal research that exceeds a two-year follow-up is needed to comprehensively assess the career needs and life adjustment of battered women survivors.

Postshelter Adjustment of Children From Violent Families

Few studies have examined the adjustment of battered women and their children after exiting domestic violence shelters. Participants were 62 women who had endured severe partner abuse, completed a shelter program with their children, and resided in the community for at least 6 months. Field interviews concerned mothers' and children's abuse histories and included measures of maternal depression, maternal trauma, and child behavior problems. Nearly all women had lived violence free since shelter exit. Child internalizing behaviors were associated with direct abuse, maternal depression, and shelter program. Externalizing behaviors were related to maternal depression and shelter program. Neither severity of interparental violence nor maternal trauma symptoms was related to child behavior problems. Mothers' family of-origin abuse predicted current satisfaction with child functioning, beyond the effects of maternal depression and child behavioral problems. Findings suggest a need for postshelter therapeutic services and further research addressing the adjustment of such families.

Predicting Re-Victimization of Battered Women 3 Years After Exiting a Shelter Program

This study examined interpersonal and ecological predictors of re-victimization of a sample of women with abusive partners. All women (N = 124) had sought refuge from a battered women's shelter 3 years earlier, and half the sample had been randomly assigned to receive free, short-term advocacy services immediately upon exit from the shelter. Results 2 years post-intervention revealed positive change in the lives of participants (C. M. Sullivan & D. Bybee, 1999), including a decrease in abuse for women who had worked with advocates. The current study examined intervention effects 3 years after the program ended, as well as other predictors of re-abuse. Nineteen percent of the original sample had experienced domestic violence between 2 and 3 years after shelter exit (65% by current partners, 35% by ex-partners). The advocacy program's effect on risk of re-victimization did not continue 3 years post-intervention. However, having worked with an advocate 3 years prior continued to have a positive impact on women's quality of life and level of social support. The risk of being abused 3 years post-shelter stay was exacerbated by a number of factors present 1 year prior, including women's (1) having experienced abuse in the 6 months before that point; (2) having difficulties accessing resources; (3) having problems with the state welfare system; and (4) having people in their social networks who made their lives difficult. Women were at less risk of abuse if, 1 year earlier, they (1) were employed; (2) reported higher quality of life; and (3) had people in their networks who provided practical help and/or were available to talk about personal matters. These findings support the hypothesis that access to resources and social support serve as protective factors against continued abuse.

Long-term Trends in Depression among Women Separated from Abusive Partners

This study tested a cumulative adversity hypothesis, where differences in postseparation stressors among battered women were expected to lead to a widening gap in levels of women's depression over time. Ninety-four women separated from their abusive partners were interviewed six times over a 2-year period. Consistent with the hypothesis, inequalities grew over time. Women who were exposed to the greatest amount of violence and secondary stressors shortly after shelter exit experienced relatively higher levels of depression that either did not improve or significantly increased with time. Social support was the only resource to have the hypothesized decreasing effect on depression.

Conduct problems among children at battered women's shelters: Prevalence and stability of maternal reports

The present research was designed to (1) replicate prevalence estimates of clinical levels of conduct problems in a large (n = 401) sample of children residing at a shelter for battered women, and (2) assess the stability of mothers' reports of child conduct problems following shelter departure. According to mothers' reports on standardized questionnaires and diagnostic interviews obtained during shelter residence, approximately one third of the children between 4 and 10 years of age exhibited clinical levels of conduct problems. Prior research has demonstrated elevated maternal distress during shelter residence and suggests that such distress may influence mothers' reports of child conduct problems. To examine this issue, a subset of families with children exhibiting clinical levels of conduct problems (n = 68) was reassessed following their shelter departure. Mothers' reports of child conduct problems remained stable despite significant reductions in mothers' distress after shelter exit.

Sublethal effects of azamethiphos on shelter use by juvenile lobsters ( Homarus americanus)

The use of pesticides to treat sea lice infestations in aquaculture may have negative impacts on non-target organisms such as the American lobster ( Homarus americanus). Juvenile lobsters spend most of their time in shelter to avoid predation. This study examined: (1) whether the organophosphate pesticide azamethiphos affected shelter use by juvenile lobsters; (2) whether leaving shelter was a form of azamethiphos avoidance; and (3) whether azamethiphos affected shelter re-entry. The experiments were performed on juvenile lobsters (6.5–8 mm carapace length) in individual aquaria with an artificial shelter placed on a sand substrate. Azamethiphos concentrations of 0, 100, 500 and 1000 μg l −1 were used. Ten-minute short-term pulsed exposures to azamethiphos mimicking field conditions resulted in no shelter exits or lobster deaths. Under continuous exposure to azamethiphos, all lobsters left their shelters and the time to shelter exit and death decreased with increasing azamethiphos concentration. Survival of lobsters placed in fresh seawater following shelter exit was 100% for the 100 μg l −1 treatment, 50% for the 500 μg l −1 treatment and 33% for the 1000 μg l −1 treatment. Time to re-enter the shelter following exposure to azamethiphos was significantly shorter than the control for lobsters exposed to 100 μg l −1 and significantly longer than the control for lobsters exposed to 1000 μg l −1. Shelter exit appears to be a form of avoidance behavior to high concentrations of azamethiphos. At concentrations used by the aquaculture industry (100 μg l −1 and short exposure times), azamethiphos would not affect lobster shelter use. However, if the concentration or exposure time increased, mortality could occur directly due to this pesticide or indirectly as a consequence of leaving shelter.

Tracing the path out of homelessness: The housing patterns of families after exiting shelter

Housing patterns of homeless families after shelter exit were explored in order to study the role of subsidized housing in the achievement of residential stability. Families (n = 233), interviewed prior to their first entry into emergency shelter, were reinterviewed five years later. At follow-up, 80% were in their own apartments and only 3% were still in shelter. Of 114 families who obtained subsidized housing after their first shelter exit, 83 were still there an average of 3.3 years later. Nearly half (51) of the 119 families who left shelter without a subsidized apartment returned to shelter, but a majority obtained subsidized apartments and achieved stability after a subsequent shelter stay. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Tracing the path out of homelessness: The housing patterns of families after exiting shelter

Housing patterns of homeless families after shelter exit were explored in order to study the role of subsidized housing in the achievement of residential stability. Families (n = 233), interviewed prior to their first entry into emergency shelter, were reinterviewed five years later. At follow-up, 80% were in their own apartments and only 3% were still in shelter. Of 114 families who obtained subsidized housing after their first shelter exit, 83 were still there an average of 3.3 years later. Nearly half (51) of the 119 families who left shelter without a subsidized apartment returned to shelter, but a majority obtained subsidized apartments and achieved stability after a subsequent shelter stay. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Predictors of Exit and Reentry among Family Shelter Users in New York City

This study explores the process of exit from and reentry to public family shelters for homeless families in New York City. A Cox proportional-hazards model was developed to identify the effects of demographic, family structure, reason for homelessness, and time-related variables on the hazard rates for different types of shelter discharge and shelter reentry. The study specifically explores the significance of type of housing placement as a predictor variable for shelter reentry. Various demographic and family structure attributes are linked with shelter exit and reentry, including race and ethnicity, family size, age of family head, pregnancy status, and public assistance recipiency status. Although there is a trade-off between length of shelter stay and type of housing placement at shelter discharge, procuring subsidized housing is associated with a substantially lower probability of shelter readmission. Policy implications of these findings and future directions for research on the dynamics of family h...

Women Who Use Domestic Violence Shelters: Changes in Depression Over Time

This study examined the levels of depression reported by women who had used a domestic violence shelter. Depressive symptoms were assessed three times: immediately after shelter exit, 10 weeks thereafter, and 6 months later. Whereas 83% of the women reported at least mild depression on the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) scale upon shelter exit, only 58% were depressed 10 weeks later. This did not change at the 6-month follow-up. An ecological, longitudinal model was evaluated to predict battered women's depression 8 1/2 months postshelter exit. Results of hierarchical regression analyses suggested that, after controlling for previous levels of depression, the women's feelings of powerlessness, experience of abuse, and decreased social support contributed to their depression symptoms. The women's scores on these three variables (feelings of powerlessness, abuse, and social support) at 10 weeks postshelter exit and at 6-month follow-up predicted depression at 6 months. Thus, there were both predictive and concurrent effects for these constructs. Implications for clinical and community interventions are discussed.

After the Crisis: A Needs Assessment of Women Leaving a Domestic Violence Shelter

The current study presents the results of a needs assessment of 141 women exiting an emergency shelter for women with abusive partners. Extensive in-person interviews were conducted. Results indicate that battered women need numerous community resources upon their shelter exit, including legal assistance, employment, and housing. Race, age, and whether a woman was returning to her assailant influenced which resources she reported needing at shelter exit. Most of the women had experienced severe abuse and injuries, and required physical protection. Implications of these findings as they relate to program development and integration of social services are discussed.