Families with children now comprise one-third of all people using homeless shelters. Research has shown that homelessness makes it difficult for adults and children to lead productive, healthy lives, and the ramifications can be long term. Yet little is known about what happens to families and children after episodes of homelessness. To fill this gap, Abt Associates examined the immediate and longer-term implications of homelessness for families’ health, employment, stability, behavioral health, and continued homelessness. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) funded a series of briefs to help chart the course toward economic, family and housing stability and reducing the effects of instability on families’ and children’s well-being.
Learn how the Homeless Families Research Briefs project highlighted the issues surrounding families experiencing #HomelessnessInAmerica.
The Study
The Homeless Families Research Briefs project, funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, leverages data that Abt Associates collected for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Family Options Study. For more than three years, the Family Options Study followed 2,282 homeless families with children who entered emergency shelter in 12 U.S. communities across the country.
Though the purpose of the Family Options Study was to determine if a particular type of housing assistance best helps a homeless family achieve stability and other positive outcomes, this project used those data to examine in greater depth what happens to families during and after stays in emergency shelters.
Who Uses Emergency Shelter?
Families in the study were experiencing deep poverty when they entered shelters, with half having annual incomes below $7,500. Families often included members who had disabilities that limited parents’ ability to work, and many families had limited recent work histories. The typical family in the study was an adult woman in her late 20s with one or two children, and half of the families had at least one child under the age of three. In 27 percent of families, the head of household was under the age of 24. Couples living in shelters were not uncommon, with 30 percent of families having two or more adults present in shelter.
More than 60 percent of the parents reported previous episodes of homelessness, with 16 percent having experienced homelessness as a child. More than one quarter of parents had been in foster care, group homes or other institutional settings as a child. As adults, almost half of respondents reported having experienced physical abuse or being threatened with violence by a spouse or partner. Twenty-four percent of families reported that prior evictions were a barrier to housing.
The Connection to Work Employment Among Families Who Are #HomelessInAmerica:
Family employment and income increased in the three years after a shelter stay but remained unstable.
Among families staying in emergency shelters, most parents were not currently employed, and many had been out of work for a year or more. Only 17 percent of parents had worked for pay in the previous week, with another 5 percent reporting that they were in school or in training. Asked about a longer time period, 42 percent said that they had worked at some point in the past six months, 54 percent during the past year, and 69 percent at some point during the past two years. The rate of employment while in a shelter was lower than the employment rate among families in deep poverty in the same communities.
Those who worked the week prior worked an average of 27 hours per week at their main job, with an average hourly wage of $9.40. If the parent was employed at this job continuously over a year, his or her annual earnings would total only $13,200 per year.
In the three years following their stay in a shelter, parents’ employment rates and incomes gradually increased. Thirty-one percent of parents were working 20 months later, and 38 percent were working three years later. Individual parents moved in and out of work over those three years, despite the overall increase in employment over that period. However, incomes were still very low, and employment was unstable. Average annual household income rose from about $9,500 in the year before entering a shelter to $12,000 three years later but was still well below the poverty line ($14,710 for a two-person family and $18,530 for a family of three).
Families with lower rates of employment appear to be more likely to return to homelessness. Three years after staying in shelter, 28 percent of families with a parent who had worked during the past week had been homeless or doubled up in the prior 6 months, compared with 37 percent of families who did not work during the same period. The direction of this causality is unclear, as lack of income could lead to housing instability or housing instability could make working more difficult.
#HomelessInAmerica and the Social Safety Net
Families in shelters have similar or higher rates of benefit use than other families in deep poverty.
One hypothesis about what causes family homelessness is that families who become homeless are less well connected to the benefits and services of social safety net programs than other low-income families. However, this does not appear to be the case for this sample. In fact, families staying in emergency shelters in the Family Options Study reported rates of participation in such programs that were greater than or equal to those of other families in deep poverty in the same communities. Read the brief on patterns of benefit receipt.
Separation of Families #HomelessInAmerica
Almost 30 percent of families in emergency shelters reported at least one family member was not with them in shelter.
During their initial stay, 24 percent of families reported that at least one of their children was not currently living with them. That figure remained the same 20 months later. However, the stable overall rate masks churn within families. Twenty months later, 10 percent of families reported separation from at least one child who was with the family in shelter while 8 percent of families had at least one child who was separated from them in shelter living with them by that time. For information on family separations, read more.
Thirty-nine percent of families with two adult partners during the initial shelter stay reported that one partner was not living with the family 20 months later, a 12-point increase over the 27 percent rate reported in shelter.
Housing instability and family separations appear to be related. Families who reported separated children during an initial shelter stay were more likely to experience subsequent housing instability. Families who experienced subsequent housing instability were more likely to report separation from their children 20 months later.
Well-Being of Children who Experience Being #HomelessInAmerica
Compared with national norms, young children who have stayed in a shelter have higher risk for developmental delays and higher rates of behavioral challenges.
Twenty months after staying in an emergency shelter with their families, young children were at higher risk for early developmental delays and behavioral problems compared with national norms. Study children displayed moderate gaps in reading readiness and small gaps in math readiness compared with norms for children their age. Read the full brief on early childhood well-being.
Access to Early Care and Education and Child Outcomes
Twenty months after a shelter stay, families’ use of Head Start and other early education and center-based care was similar to national norms for families in poverty. Families who experienced recent housing instability had lower enrollment rates in early education and center-based care, but enrollment in Head Start programs did not vary. Study children displayed stronger reading and math readiness if they were enrolled in Head Start or other center-based early care and education than if they were in parental care only.
Housing Instability and Child Outcomes
Twenty months after a shelter stay, having been homeless or doubled up in the past six months was not linked to behavior problems or school readiness. However, each additional move during the previous six months was associated with higher rates of behavioral problems and with lower reading readiness scores.
Well-Being of Adolescents Who Experience Being #HomelessInAmerica
Adolescents experienced school challenges following a shelter stay.
Some school changes occur as adolescents move from primary to middle school and from middle to high school. Even these normal transitions can be disruptive to students’ academic performance, but changing schools often and at times that are out of sync with peers can be particularly detrimental.
On average, adolescents attended two schools in the 20 months following their shelter stay. Seventy percent changed schools at least once, and 23 percent changed schools two or more times, rates far above national norms.
Missed school can negatively affect adolescents’ school performance. Adolescents who had experienced homelessness were more likely to be frequently absent from school than their peers, with 30 percent having missed three or more days in the past month.
Behavioral Health of Adolescents who Experience Homelessness
Twenty months after staying in an emergency shelter with their families, adolescents exhibited more behavior problems and less positive behavior than their peers nationally at all income levels.
Behavioral Health of Adults in Families who Experience Being #HomelessInAmerica
Parents’ behavioral health improves as they exit homelessness.
Behavioral health problems for both mothers and fathers decreased steadily following a shelter stay. Among mothers, the percentage showing evidence of drug abuse decreased from 12 percent to 3 percent 37 months after the shelter stay, while evidence of alcohol dependence declined from 11 percent to 9 percent. Serious psychological distress dropped by almost a quarter over the same period, from 22 percent to 17 percent. Fathers’ changes in behavioral health and substance abuse 37 months after a shelter stay were similar, though their initial levels of psychological distress at the time of the shelter stay were lower than those of mothers.
The psychological distress levels of parents who had experienced intimate partner violence remained higher at 20 and 37 months following a shelter stay, but these parents had sharper declines in levels of distress than other parents. Similarly, parents who reported a behavioral problem during the shelter stay had higher levels of psychological distress than those who did not, but also experienced greater declines in distress.
Housing stability was associated with improvements in behavioral health problems over time, but substance use problems may complicate efforts to attain stability.
Families who reported stable housing 37 months after the initial shelter stay showed dramatic reductions in psychological distress. Those who returned to homelessness or doubled up with other households because they could not find or afford a place of their own continued to have high levels of psychological distress.
Predicting Repeated and Persistent Family Homelessness
Few family characteristics help identify repeated or persistent family homelessness.
Most families who use emergency shelters do so once and briefly. However, some families experience multiple episodes of homelessness or remain homeless for long periods of time. Better understanding of the characteristics of those families who experience repeated or persistent homelessness could identify additional supports needed to stabilize their housing and inform targeting of more intensive interventions.
Overall, using family characteristics to predict future homelessness could potentially identify an additional one in 10 families likely to experience repeated or persistent homelessness. Unemployment for two or more years and child separations were the only family characteristics connected to both past and later experiences of repeated and persistent homelessness.
Compared with parents experiencing their first episode of homelessness in adulthood, parents who had been homeless in adulthood before a shelter stay with their children were 10 percentage points more likely to have yet another episode of family homelessness as of 37 months after that stay.
Receipt of SSI or SSDI disability benefits in shelter appeared to protect families with disabilities from repeated homelessness over the short-term (20 months after a stay) but was not associated with longer-term reductions in repeated homelessness.
What Can Be Done To Help Families Who Experience Being #HomelessInAmerica?
Employment, Benefits and the Social Safety Net
Most families who experience homelessness have worked for pay at some point during the three years following a shelter stay, but unstable employment is common. Connections to work supports and benefits are important to help parents and children avoid significant hardship.
Rates of access to benefits among families in shelter were stable and similar to those of families in deep poverty, but more can be done to connect these vulnerable people to benefits—particularly Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which provides cash assistance that can be used toward rent and utilities but was accessed by fewer than half of homeless families in this study.
Additionally, programs and funding streams such as TANF, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training Programs may help parents find employment by providing subsidized child care to enable work or by providing market-relevant job training.
Policymakers also should explore options for modifying benefits and services so their use can help prevent family homelessness.
Family Separations
Administrators of programs that serve homeless families should consider whether current policies could be adapted to allow all family members to stay with the family in shelter. Reported rates of formal child separations through the child welfare system were low in shelter but rose after families exited shelters. Data from the national Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System shows that, for at least 10 percent of children formally placed into foster care, one reason for the placement was inadequate housing. Collecting information on a family’s housing status during child welfare investigation, intake and monitoring may allow child welfare agencies to help families limit and avoid periods of housing instability.
Prior family separations and episodes of homelessness were associated with greater risk for separations after a shelter stay. This suggests potential benefits if agencies can identify services helpful for children who are at higher risk of separation while families are in shelters. The Family Unification Program (FUP), which recently was expanded for the first time in many years, also may help. FUP vouchers are directed toward families for whom inadequate housing is a primary factor in placing a child in out-of-home care.
Child and Adolescent Well-Being
Policies prioritizing children experiencing homelessness in Head Start programs appear to be working; children in unstably housed families were enrolled in Head Start programs at similar rates to those in families who had been stably housed during that time, but enrollment rates in other center-based programs were lower.
Enrollment in Head Start and other early education or center-based care programs was associated with greater school readiness among children who had been in emergency shelters with their families. This is consistent with findings from early care and education research on children in poverty.
For adolescents who had stayed in a shelter, levels of school mobility and absenteeism were notably above national norms. Currently, the McKinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children and Youth program administered by the U.S. Department of Education requires public school districts to have homelessness liaisons and provide transportation assistance to reduce school disruptions during episodes of homelessness. Findings suggest that more could be done to help adolescents in families who experience homelessness avoid repeated school moves.
Adult Behavioral Health
Whether because families are able to stabilize, their housing circumstances improve or they receive behavioral health services, many parents in homeless families show considerable improvements in mental health and substance use challenges over time.
Improvements in psychological distress are greater for families who attain housing stability than for those who do not. Though not guaranteed, programs that provide stable housing to families experiencing homelessness will have the additional advantage of likely reducing levels of psychological distress.
Substance abuse rates were halved for families who attained housing stability, but families with substance abuse when they entered shelters also were less likely to be stably housed 37 months later. Programs that seek to reduce substance abuse for families who experience homelessness may help families to attain or maintain housing stability.
More Research is Needed
This series of briefs presents important evidence for families experiencing or at risk of homelessness, agencies and service providers, but also for policymakers and researchers. While family homelessness can be difficult to predict, families that experience continued housing instability confront ongoing challenges. Families with continued housing instability work less, are connected to benefit programs at lower rates, and experience higher rates of child separation. Children in homeless families with continued housing instability exhibit more behavior problems and lower reading readiness, while their parents struggle with high rates of psychological distress.
More research is needed to further understand the experiences of adults and children currently experiencing homelessness that can help identify potential solutions to ending family homelessness. Extensive data sets from the Family Options Study are available through the U.S. Census Bureau’s Research Data Centers for other researchers to use to help illuminate additional questions related to family homelessness.
Learn more about Abt's work in Housing, Communities & Asset Building.
The Family Options study was recently cited in Home, Together: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness.
The plan provides a clear vision and framework for service providers, public private partnerships, and federal, state and local agencies to better support and enhance the programs that are helping to end homelessness in America.
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