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1. Correspondence to: Paul A. Toro, Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, 71 W. Warren Avenue,
Detroit, MI 48202.
ADVANCES IN RESEARCH ON
HOMELESSNESS: AN OVERVIEW
OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE
Paul A. Toro
Wayne State University
■
Homelessness continues to be a vexing social problem that concerns many
community psychologists and other professionals, as well as the general
public. Responding to the obvious need, research has progressed rapidly over
the past decade. The eight papers in this Special Issue provide examples of
the many methodological and conceptual advances that have been made in
the recent research on homelessness. The papers provide policy analysis,
develop measures and methods for collecting representative samples, compare
important subgroups in the homeless population, conduct longitudinal
investigations, and describe and evaluate innovative interventions. © 1999
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The lifetime prevalence of homelessness in the United States has been estimated at over
seven percent and there has been a dramatic increase of interest in homelessness in both
popular and professional literatures over the past 10–15 years. Public opinion polls have
indicated genuine concern about the problem and a variety of studies on homelessness
have been completed. Many of the earliest of these studies documented the character-
istics of the homeless populations in our cities, often focusing on mental health and sub-
stance abuse. More recently, studies have become more methodologically sophisticated
and have investigated a variety of previously unexplored issues. This Special Issue on
Homelessness involves eight papers that illustrate various methodological and concep-
tual advances that community psychologists and other researchers have made over the
past decade. As a group, these papers represent eight different data sets involving thou-
sands of homeless people in five different cities across the nation.
A R T I C L E
JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 27, No. 2, 115–117 (1999)
© 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0090-4392/99/020115-03

2. The first paper, by Toro and Warren, provides a general introduction to the problem
of homelessness. It then presents a policy analysis that identifies different political forces
involved in the problem of homelessness and recommends some strategies for mobiliz-
ing community resources to solve the problem. Our growing knowledge of homelessness
can only be useful if it is thoughtfully incorporated in the policy arena. The authors en-
courage community psychologists and other professionals to get involved in helping to
solve the problem of homelessness.
The second paper, by Bates and Toro, is an example of advances that have been
made in measurement. The study developed sound measures of social support that are
appropriate for use with homeless and poor populations. The data from this and other
recent studies (e.g., Solarz & Bogat, 1990; Toro, Bellavia, Daeschler, Owens, Wall,
Passero, & Thomas, 1995; also see Roll, Toro, & Ortola; and Toro et al., both in this is-
sue) have now documented that, contrary to some popular stereotypes, most homeless
people are in regular contact with family. The study’s findings further suggest that social
support is an important construct for this marginal population, just as it has been shown
to be for the more normative samples involved in most research on social support. The
study finds a number of predicable relationships between measures of social support on
various characteristics and outcomes. Its findings also suggest that it is those under the
greatest stress who have the most to gain from having social support available to them.
Thus, even in such an extreme group, we find some support for the “stress-buffering hy-
pothesis” that is typically studied in more normative populations.
The third paper highlights another major advance in recent research on homeless-
ness: sampling methodology. The paper, by Toro et al., documents how sophisticated
probability sampling methods can be applied in order to obtain representative samples
of homeless adults. Luckily for researchers studying homeless people, the study finds that
the most time-consuming sorts of sampling methods (e.g., combing the streets) do not
yield large numbers of unique homeless individuals. The study also found considerable
similarities among the large homeless samples interviewed across two different cities.
The findings of this study and others that have used similarly sophisticated sampling de-
signs (e.g., Zlotnick, Robertson, & Lahiff, in this issue) support the notion that differ-
ences in the characteristics of homeless people observed across different studies may
have as much to do with differences in research methodologies as they do with actual
geographical variations in homeless populations.
The next two papers highlight the growing understanding among researchers that
the homeless population is heterogeneous (wherever it is studied) and must be seen as
consisting of many subgroups. Both the causes and consequences of homelessness appear
to differ among such subgroups. The fourth paper, by MacLean, Embry, and Cauce, in-
volves one of the least studied groups among the overall homeless population: adoles-
cents homeless on their own (without their parents). The study considers youth who have
taken different paths to homelessness by comparing “runaways,” “throwaways,” and youth
removed from home by authorities. Those removed from home had the worst family
background and the runaways had the best. Because few other variables differentiated
the groups, it appears that the trauma of homelessness may largely over-ride the effects
the different routes may have had on outcomes. The traumatic impact of homelessness
more generally has recently been documented (see Goodman, Saxe, & Harvey, 1991).
The fifth paper, by Roll et al., compares three subgroups commonly found among
homeless adults: single men, single women, and women with children. The data report-
ed suggest that these subgroups have different backgrounds, problems, strengths, and
116 • Journal of Community Psychology, March 1999

3. service needs (the study by Zlotnick et al., in this issue, further suggests that these three
subgroups have different longitudinal outcomes).
Perhaps the most significant advance in research conducted over the past decade is
the initiation of various studies taking a longitudinal perspective. The last three papers
all involve longitudinal data collected on diverse subgroups. The sixth paper, by Sto-
janovic, Weitzman, Shinn, Labay, and Williams, describes the housing outcomes for a
large sample of homeless families (women with children) followed over three or more
years. It finds that most in this important subgroup of the homeless eventually become
stably housed and that subsidized housing was often critical in achieving this stability.
The seventh paper, by Zlotnick et al., collected longitudinal data on a broad proba-
bility sample of homeless adults from throughout Alameda county in California. As in
the prior paper, the authors found that obtaining economic resources during the follow-
up period (e.g., subsidized housing and public assistance) promoted exits from home-
lessness. The findings of both of these papers question the growing trend to cut rather
than expand the availability of such economic resources in our society. The sorts of wel-
fare reforms than have become popular in recent years may impact negatively on home-
less people, making it difficult for them to achieve housing stability. Such reforms may
also harm poor people generally, eventually pushing more of them into homelessness.
The last paper, by Tsemberis, describes an innovative supported housing program
for homeless adults with severe psychiatric disabilities. Rather than being placed in tem-
porary or transitional housing, the clients were immediately given their own apartment.
The outcomes of this program were very promising (84% remained housed after 3 years)
and compared favorably with outcomes in a comparison program that involved a series
of transitional placements. Contrary to the beliefs of many mental health professionals
working with homeless mentally ill clients, such clients appear quite capable of being
placed right away in permanent housing, without the dislocations associated with the
transitional housing that is becoming so widely funded in our nation.
It is hoped that the methodological and conceptual advances represented in this
Special Issue will foster future research on homelessness and improve its focus. It is also
hoped that the sorts of information reported will help provide a sound basis for policy
and intervention efforts directed toward the problem of homelessness.
REFERENCES
Goodman, L., Saxe, L., & Harvey, M. (1991). Homelessness as psychological trauma: Broadening
perspectives. American Psychologist, 46, 1219–1225.
Solarz, A.L., & Bogat, G.A. (1990). When social support fails: The homeless. Journal of Commu-
nity Psychology, 18, 79–96.
Toro, P.A., Bellavia, C., Daeschler, C., Owens, B., Wall, D.D., Passero, J.M., & Thomas, D.M. (1995).
Distinguishing homelessness from poverty: A comparative study. Journal of Consulting and Clin-
ical Psychology, 63, 280–289.
Advances in Research on Homelessness • 117