VIRTUAL Lisbon Livable Cities

Abstract

Homelessness is a global problem, a serious violation of human dignity. Understanding the role of support services in determining pathways into and out of homelessness is vital to ultimately remedy homelessness. The central findings of this study indicate that the number of support services used is associated with marginally higher likelihood of exiting cultural homelessness (e.g., cultural homelessness is a more inclusive definition including people not only rough sleepers but people couch surfing or in overcrowded dwellings etc), statistically significant at the 1% level. However, this association is not statistically significant for literal homelessness (e.g., literal homelessness is a narrower definition including people who are rough sleepers). In addition and perhaps most strikingly, public housing perfectly predicts not entering or exiting literal or cultural homelessness. Prima facie, these results suggest that people in public housing are not entering or exiting homelessness six-month period to six-month period. In other words, none of the respondents in social housing are observed to become homeless. Nor are any of the respondents in social housing observed exiting homelessness. This is consistent with a priori expectations. In a similar way, remarkably, community housing is also strongly associated with exits out of literal homelessness, a 31-fold increase, and cultural homelessness, a 14-fold increase. It is worth noting that higher levels of educational attainment may be protective against literal and cultural homelessness. Further research, including both quantitative and qualitative research, is needed to better understand the impact of heterogenous support services on homelessness.