OUP - Abstract

No Place Like Home: Rehousing Homeless Families in an Age of Declining "Family Values"

Dissertation School: State University of New York at Stony Brook

Pages: 353

Publication Date: December 1995

Availability:
Available from the HUD USER Helpdesk P.O. Box 23268 Washington, DC 20026-3268 Toll Free: 1-800-245-2691 Fax: 1-202-708-9981 Email: oup@oup.org

Access Number: 9133

Descriptors:
Homelessness. Parents. Homeless assistance programs. Transitional Housing programs. Families.

Abstract:
This doctoral dissertation explores family homelessness and shelter policy in Westchester County, New York. The study uses data from a three-wave panel study of parents who became homeless in 1992 (n=340) as well as data on the operation of ten family shelters in Westchester County. County, state and federal policy aimed at rehabilitating homeless families is also analyzed. Evidence from retrospective life course histories examines the past lifestyles and living arrangements of parents who became homeless. Though families are shown to expend much effort at maintaining nuclear family lifestyles, once these families become homeless, they are assumed to be deficient families in need of substantial rehabilitation before becoming eligible for rehousing. Many services offered to homeless parents reflect the state's unresolved positions regarding women's economic dependency. Labeling families as needing rehabilitative services is strategic on the part of policy makers: once so labeled, homeless families are eligible for services that are combined to fund shelter programs. The author argues that high visibility service intensive shelters act as economic and ideological cover, enabling policy makers to offer a substantial proportion of homeless families long-term housing subsides at the end of their stay in the homeless shelter [AUTHOR ABSTRACT MODIFIED.]

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