OPIS Foundation

The 1987 McKinney Act defines homeless people as those who have spent more than seven consecutive nights in a shelter, car, abandoned building, public park, nonresidential building, or other non-dwelling and gives aid to the homeless in the form of emergency  food and shelter, medical and mental health care, permanent and transitional housing, and education and job training.

The United States entered a new phase in its war on poverty when it eliminated Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and created Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). TANF mandates limits on welfare checks and allows states to reprogram money saved from unspent welfare outlays into expenditures necessary to help former recipients succeed as workers. Since the fall of 1996 when TANF took effect, welfare rolls have declined by as much as 85% in some states. Cutting the welfare rolls as a means of combating poverty has instead created a new set of social problems in which poor mothers, no longer able to rely on AFDC subsidies, are now at the mercy of a labor market that offers, low-wages, little job security and flexibility, and few opportunities for advancement.

Approximately two million persons are now homeless at some time during the year. Six key factors contribute to initiating and maintaining homelessness: culture (discrimination and public apathy); institutions (unemployment, shortage or inaccessibility of low-income housing, deinstitutionalization of mental health treatment); community (urban redevelopment and zoning policies); organizations (social service requirements and inaccessible or inappropriate services); groups (lack of social support); and individuals (impairments, disabilities, and personal choice). Historically, the homeless were predominantly white (typically 70 percent or more). While the exact proportion is determined by the ethnic composition of the local poverty population, racial and ethnic minorities are heavily over-represented in most current homeless populations.

Within the broad domain of programs targeting homeless families, a variety of housing-related interventions have been developed and delivered. The full spectrum of service approaches has been referred to as the national "system" of family shelters. Approximately 39% of the over 5,000 shelters in the United States serve families exclusively. Of family shelters, 39% are categorized as emergency shelters, 33% as transitional shelters, and 28% as shelters for battered women. Four primary service models underlie services to homeless families: (a) emergency shelters, (b) transitional shelters, (c) quasi-permanent housing, and (d) service- enriched permanent housing. Within these four service models programs vary considerably in regard to the maximum length of stay, the range and amount of support services available, and the type of families served.

Women with children constitute the largest subgroup of homeless families. It is estimated that women represent as much as 50% of the homeless population in the United States and that the fastest growing segment of the homeless population is female-headed families. In some regions of the US, it is believed that 70% to 85% of all homeless families are headed by women. It is possible to identify three subgroups of homeless women: mentally-ill women (about one-third of the total), women with dependent children (one-fourth), and runaway or abandoned teenage girls. Studies of urban homeless women have linked homelessness to personal difficulties, such as mental illness, alcohol and drug dependence, disaffiliation, and domestic violence.

Factors that have been identified as contributing to homelessness among urban women include the inability to obtain affordable low-income housing, inadequate welfare benefits, low-paying jobs (primarily in the service industry), unemployment, and barriers to employment such as the lack of child care and transportation. Homeless women are more likely than men to have lived in foster homes or institutions, and have commonly lived without either parent while growing up. Homeless women also seek more assistance than men from family and friends before reaching the street, and then feel that their resources have been entirely exhausted once they are homeless. For homeless women in rural areas, these problems are increased by fewer services and increased geographic space.

There is a critical need for aggressive outreach programs that provide mental health services and substance abuse treatment for homeless women on the streets. Comprehensive services that also include medical care, family planning, violence prevention, and behavioral risk reduction may be particularly valuable for homeless women, especially those living in unsheltered environments. 

Women, as compared to men, are also much more likely to use emergency shelter facilities, as opposed to using makeshift sleeping arrangements in such places as on the street, in vacant buildings, and in encampments. Reasons for this include the greater susceptibility to predatory violence that women face on the streets; the greater difficulties involved in caring for children in such conditions. When there are children present, the perceived threat of losing them to forced foster care placements. The type of shelter facilities available to women may vary widely. The living arrangements are primarily congregate, dormitory-style, sleeping facilities. Among women staying in shelters, a disproportionate number of them are either pregnant or are accompanied by small children. Pregnancy and small children place additional stress on any woman's housing, financial, and social resources, and thus may serve as a reason to seeking a shelter bed. Pregnant women often remain vulnerable to relapsing into homelessness after exiting shelters, especially when they have limited social support networks.

Young homeless mothers face some of the bleakest economic circumstances of any segment of the U.S. population. Teen mothers are at much greater risk of being unemployed and of becoming long-term welfare dependent. The children of these young women are faced with similarly dire prospects for educational and economic attainment and for breaking the "cycle of poverty." Coupled with the effects of young unwed motherhood, the plight of homelessness offers an even greater threat to these young women and their children. Homelessness and residential instability more generally lead to a disruption of health care and other services these families need and the educational and employment-related achievement of these women. Some have called for the establishment of a national network of "second-chance homes" that would offer young welfare mothers an opportunity to turn their lives around.

Cities are turning more and more to revising zoning laws to exclude facilities that serve the poor and homeless. Cities have managed to increase restrictions by decreasing the number of zones where facilities may operate; requiring facilities to obtain special-use permits; and placing stricter limits on the number of people a shelter or food service program may serve. With regard to women, first, service needs must be met. One key is to provide women with options. Having the option of being in a social service facility open to both women and men, or in a women's center, or in a place designed for families could contribute much to the sense of safety and security of homeless women. Counseling and support are needed to address the impacts of violence, abuse, and mental illness. Access to health care services attuned to women's concerns is important, as is affordable childcare. Social supports must be rebuilt over time. Opportunities for education, training, and employment must be created. Services must be customized to address the different circumstances and experiences of single women and women with children. 

Second, increased attention to gender issues must be incorporated into the agendas of existing coalitions, funders, and policy advisory committees, as well as all levels of government. Coalitions of service providers advocate for homeless people in general, and sometimes organize around selected sub-populations such as substance abusers and mentally ill individuals. There is a lack of community organizing, however, on issues specific to homeless women. A collective effort focused on women would provide a stronger voice for gender-based issues and services. Efforts to respond to problems of the poor and homeless may reduce the numbers of some types of poor and homeless. The key is to find programs that provide meaningful short-term aid and lead to long-term recovery, without encouraging long-term dependency or support for irresponsible and destructive lifestyles. 

Both nationally and locally, these destitute homeless families exist in urban, suburban and rural areas, surviving by sleeping in shelters, cars, motels, abandoned buildings, alleys as well as in bus and train stations. Lack of affordable housing has been identified by social science research and public policy commissions as the number one cause of homelessness among families. The threat of homelessness looms constantly over most poor families who struggle to meet their rent or mortgage payments, but there are risk factors or predictors of homelessness that suggest that some families affected by the affordable housing crisis are more likely to become homeless than others," states the National Alliance to End Homelessness.  

"Families that become homeless tend to share certain characteristics: they have extremely low incomes, tend to have young children and be headed by a younger parent, lack strong social networks and often have poor housing histories or move frequently.... It seems that homeless families are a subgroup of poor families that, for either an economic or a personal crisis, have lost their housing and cannot get back into the housing market."

According to the National Center on Family Homelessness, families with children are among the "fastest growing segment" of the homeless population. The Massachusetts-based center reports that requests by families for emergency shelter have risen every year since 1985. On any given night, some 200,000 children in homeless families aren't sleeping in their own beds. 

The consequences are harmful at the very least, and often severe.  Homeless kids go hungry twice as often as other kids. Moreover, they have twice as many ear infections, four times as many asthma attacks, five times as many stomach problems and six times as many speech difficulties. 

Concerning traumatic stress, within a single year 97 percent of homeless children move as many as three times; 25 percent witness acts of family violence; and 22 percent are separated from their immediate family, going into foster homes or to live with relatives.

As a result, homeless children experience many more mental health problems than other children. In fact, more than 20 percent of homeless preschoolers suffer emotional difficulties that are serious enough to require professional care. And 47 percent of homeless school-age children suffer anxiety, depression and withdrawal compared to 18 percent of their non-homeless counterparts.

Concerning education, only about 77 percent of school-age homeless children attend school regularly, and many experience learning problems. Homeless students are twice as likely to have to repeat a grade and four times as likely to have developmental delays.

Kids need a stable internal world in order to reach out and move forward. It felt to me like there's just none of that. 

"I think life must feel really unpredictable and random for these homeless kids," she observes. "And it's hard to form attachments and develop relationships in that kind of randomness and unpredictability."   The number of homeless families is increasing, and often one of their way stations is skid row, Linesch reports. This puts impressionable young children in proximity to prostitution, drug dealing and abuse, alcoholism, acts of violence, mentally deranged people, excrement-stained and urine-soaked sidewalks, and other unimaginable horrors.

"But for me the biggest issue is being homeless, whether or not they're on skid row," she says. "The bigger question is a child not having a place that they can experience some sense of stable family. The lack of a psychological anchor of having a sense of family and home, and the internalized emptiness that being homeless establishes in a child's psychological makeup, can be devastating."

She runs through a laundry list of long-term negative effects: developmental problems, insecurity, lack of self-esteem and anxiety issues along with health and safety problems.

"It's interesting that homeless mothers often experienced homelessness in their own lives," Harte notes. "So it's one of those things that reappears in people's lives again. It keeps popping back up.

"When you have kids who don't know where they're going to sleep at night, or if mom or dad or anybody is going to be there, it's terrible. And then not knowing what sort of trauma or crisis is going to occur in the next ten minutes, that's devastating."

One of the most damaging and enduring impacts homelessness has on children, Harte says, concerns their education. Moving from place to place means attending one school after another, resulting in lower performance and never really catching up with classmates.

"The traditional view that the homeless are men with substance abuse issues is no longer a predominant reality," the report concluded. "Perhaps the most alarming trend in the homeless population is the increase of women and children. Factors such as rising poverty levels, lack of affordable housing, increased health care costs, and welfare benefit time limits have contributed to this change. In Los Angeles, the breakdown of social networks and the concentration of homeless services in the skid row area are altering the face of the homeless population."

Families with children are now the fastest growing group of the homeless population, they account for about 40% of the people who become homeless each year. 38% of the people already homeless are families with children.

"Because they are not sitting on street corners begging with their kids in tow, people underestimate the number of families that are homeless," said Jennifer Anderson, director of programs for New Beginnings for Women and Children, an organization dedicated to helping homeless women and children in Tucson.  "When we say 'homeless,' people usually think of a man on the street or someone that smells," Foster said.  "But that's not the situation anymore."

Women and children, often referred to as the "hidden homeless", are increasingly being turned away from overcrowded shelters, forcing them to seek refuge with friends, relatives or in less fortunate situations, find shelter in cars or vacant storage units. Safety concerns often discourage single women and mothers from staying in shelters or on the street, but safe havens are surely not easy to find. 

What Can You Do?

We at The Opis Foundation are working with local food retailers and distributors to generate steady contributions of healthy food products to the local food banks.  We have initiated an information campaign aimed at local churches to spread the word about the existence of the food banks and other aid to the hungry.  Again, working with the churches and other agencies, we are distributing educational materials about healthy diets and food requirements.  Our goal is to help the hungry in our community have access to available food resources and be better educated on what foods are best for a healthy growing family.  Our campaigns have been carefully designed to not only get the word out, but also to put to rest any fears or concerns that there is a stigma attached to seeking help for a food insecurity environment. 

The donations from the food retailers and distributors have gone a long way toward helping us relieve hunger for some citizens in our community.  However, there are many more who need our help.  Your generous donation to The Opis Foundation will be used in one of our educational campaigns, for food vouchers for needy families, or for purchase of discounted foodstuffs to be delivered to the local food banks.  We could really use your help.  Won't you please send a donation for as much as you can today?