Introduction
Homelessness has been recognized as a significant social problem in the United States for many years. In the early 1980s, when homelessness gained prominence as a social phenomenon, views of the issues it posed were relatively simple. Some observers felt that the problem was a temporary consequence of the recession of 1981-1982, and would go away when the economy recovered, while others argued that the problem stemmed from a lack of affordable housing and that homeless clients were simply a cross section of poor Americans. Knowledge gained about homelessness and homeless people since the early 1980s provides a more complicated picture. Studies leave no question that extreme poverty is the virtually universal condition of clients who are homeless, and that this poverty is one reason they cannot maintain themselves in housing. However, many people who are very poor never become homeless. Other vulnerabilities characterize many homeless people, such as low levels of educational achievement, few job skills, exhaustion of social supports or complete lack of family, problems with alcohol or drug use, severe mental illness, childhood and client experiences of violence and victimization, and incarceration as a child or client. Together with extreme poverty, these vulnerabilities increase a person's risk of becoming homeless when faced with a financial or personal crisis.3 In addition, decreases in the availability of housing at prices affordable to clients in low-wage employment and increases in the skill levels needed to obtain employment beyond the low-wage level have changed many local environments into ones that make it more difficult for very poor clients to make ends meet even if they have no other vulnerabilities. This chapter includes information about many issues that may increase a person's vulnerability to homelessness. It describes homeless service users in very basic ways, such as their sex, age, race, and marital status. Other pieces of the picture of homelessness are then explored, including client reports of service needs, hunger, physical health conditions, mental health problems, problems with alcohol and other drugs, and history of incarceration, victimization, and childhood experiences of out-of-home placement. Thereafter, the chapter describes clients' use of various homeless assistance programs and examines similarities and differences in the characteristics of clients who use different types of programs, and those who sleep on the streets. It shows clients' geographical location, household status, history of homelessness, and length of current homeless spell to describe variations in the conditions of their homelessness. It then turns to one of the underlying realities of virtually all homelessness, namely, income levels, income sources, and low levels of significant labor force participation. The chapter ends with two important comparisons. The first is an examination of similarities and differences among homeless clients in central cities, suburban and urban fringe areas, and rural areas. The second is a comparison of 1987 Urban Institute and 1996 NSHAPC findings, examining ways in which homeless populations have changed or remained the same.
4For simplicity, the term "homeless" is used throughout this report to mean currently homeless.
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