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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Kristin A. Stainbrook, MA and John Hornik, PhD. Advocates for Human Potential, 262 Delaware Avenue, Delmar, NY 12054, 518-475-9146, kstainbrook@ahpnet.com
The focus of this presentation is on the many factors that may influence return to homelessness among single female headed-families that have been served in either family shelters or domestic violence shelters. They may not have an adequate income to pay costs of living. The housing that they are able to afford may be substandard. The head of household may have either mental health or substance abuse problems or both. They may not be able to find or afford other critical services (e.g., childcare, transportation, healthcare). We conducted a descriptive study of the homeless families, interviewing women in family and domestic violence shelters, and then again six months after leaving shelter in the first phase of a two-phase study. Of the 75 families located for follow-up interviews, 21% (n=16) had returned to shelter. We will describe both the difficulties and problems that mothers stated they encountered prior to coming into shelter and those reported six months later. Finally we will report differences between families that return to homelessness within six to eight months of leaving shelter and those that do not and the implications for fsmily post-shelter case management. In Phase 2 we will compare the experience of families of who do and do not receive Family Critical Time Intervention (FCTI), a post-shelter case management service, which will be briefly described. The goal is to assess the impact of this post-shelter case management model on return to homelessness and other family outcomes.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Homelessness, Family Involvement
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.