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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Anthony M. Warnes, BSc, PhD, AcLSS and Maureen Crane, RGN, MSc, PhD. Sheffield Institute for Studies on Ageing, University of Sheffield, Elmfield, Northumberland Road, Sheffield, S10 2TU, United Kingdom, 44 0114 222 6236, a.warnes@sheffield.ac.uk

The causes of homelessness in affluent societies are multifarious and weakly understood: the best understanding identifies risk factors, but has little to say about their effect sizes or the most prevalent permutations. The presentation will outline an approach to the understanding of cause from a longitudinal (or life course) perspective that emphasises both the sequences and interactions of ‘predisposing factors', and the role of variable coping resources or ‘protective factors'. These last can collectively be described as ‘human capital', and they include knowledge (as of welfare entitlements), skills, income, and support from within the household, the wider family and social network, and from formal services. The conceptual model encapsulates the understanding acquired from a study of the reasons for homelessness among 377 newly homeless older (50+ years) people in Melbourne (Australia), Boston, Massachusetts, and England. Assessments of the reasons were collected from both homeless people and their ‘key workers'. For most respondents, becoming homeless did not follow a single ‘trigger', but rather a combination of negative events that led to growing housing instability. The most prevalent and distinctive permutations of antecedents will be described, and the critical absences of both informal and formal supporters to prevent the homelessness outcome. Finally, the compatibility of the new understanding with the recently-favoured explanatory model – that synthesises the roles of macro (or structural) and micro (of personal) factors – will be discussed, as will the implications of the focus on ‘protective factors' for the elaboration of ‘prevention practice'.

Learning Objectives: Participants in the session will gain

• Increased understanding of the social conditions and individual life course factors that make some people vulnerable to becoming homeless.
• Increased awareness of the reasons for household stress and breakdown, and how personal frailties and weak social networks interact with structural and service-delivery factors and lead to homelessness.

Keywords: Homelessness, Prevention

Related Web page: www.shef.ac.uk/sisa/research/fields/homeless

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation