Introduction
Homelessness has been a constant presence in American cities, towns, and rural areas for many years, although during the recession of 1981-82 it was identified as a national issue for the first time since the Great Depression. Since the early 1980s, homelessness has been a regular focus of media interest and a topic of policy debate. The array of programs and services for homeless persons has increased greatly during this period, as has the funding needed to support them. Reliable and comprehensive information about homeless clients has not been easy to obtain at the national level. In 1987 the Urban Institute conducted the first national study to interview homeless clients at some depth on a variety of topics. The data from that study were collected before the passage of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987, and before the significant increase in federal involvement and program development that followed. Further, although national in scope, the Urban Institute study only went to central cities and collected data only from shelter and soup kitchen users, so it could not be used to characterize homelessness in the entire United States. Nine years later, the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (NSHAPC) was conducted to remedy this serious gap in knowledge. It became the second probability-based interview study on homelessness to be national in scope. This time, homeless clients in smaller cities, suburbs, and rural areas were included for a full picture of homeless service users in late 1996. NSHAPC thus provides the first opportunity since 1987 to update the national picture of homelessness in a comprehensive and reliable way. Occurring as it did before implementation of major changes in welfare programs, it also provides a baseline for the effects of welfare reform on homeless assistance programs. NSHAPC was conceived, developed, and funded by 12 federal agencies under the auspices of the Interagency Council on the Homeless, a working group of the White House Domestic Policy Council.1 The Census Bureau carried out the data collection on behalf of the sponsoring agencies. This chapter presents findings related to the characteristics and experiences of homeless clients. Where possible, data on homeless clients are compared to statistics for the population of all American adults or those living in poverty, to provide readers with some context.
2Readers interested in more detail about the methods used in NSHAPC should read chapters 1 and 2 in Homelessness: Programs and the People They Serve—Technical Report, and that report's appendixes dealing with sampling, weighting, and the survey instruments.
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