Paper Writing Service http://StudyHub.vip/A-Research-Program-On-Homelessness-In-F 👈

1. Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 63, No. 3, 2007, pp. 567--588
A Research Program on Homelessness in France
Jean-Marie Firdion∗ and Maryse Marpsat
National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED), Paris, France
Data on the homeless in France were obtained from two surveys conducted in
Paris and a recent national survey. What emerges from these surveys of homeless
people is their social proximity to other people who are living in conditions of
poverty. The findings draw attention to the diversity of the individuals involved.
Both contextual factors (e.g., industrial restructuring) and individual handicaps
(e.g., poor education and living conditions during childhood) must be taken into
account in order to explain why some people are at greater risk than others of
losing their home. The findings suggest that preventive policy must not just focus
on keeping people in their homes, but also contribute to the more general struggle
against all aspects of poverty.
The increase in the visibility of homeless people in France occurred during the
1980s in a context of economic crisis and growing insecurity due to unemployment,
at a time when family bonds were seen as weakening. These conditions coincided
with a decrease in the stock of privately owned low quality but inexpensive housing,
much of which was demolished or renovated while original inhabitants were later
replaced by better-off residents. Despite the increased concern with housing and
homelessness, when the research program on homelessness started at the beginning
of the 1990s in our research institute, French National Institute for Demographic
Studies (INED), there had been no genuinely representative survey of the homeless
population in France, either at a national or local level.
INED’s research on the homeless addresses methodological issues and pro-
vides insights into the living conditions and trajectories of the homeless. It is based
on two quantitative surveys, as well as a number of qualitative studies. It comprises
in-depth interviews of homeless people and service providers: our first survey con-
ducted in Paris in 1995 with a sample of 591 persons aged 18 and over (Marpsat
& Firdion, 1996), a second survey, conducted in Paris and the nearest suburbs
∗Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jean-Marie Firdion, Institut
National d’Etudes Démographiques, 133 Boulevard Davout, 72980 Paris cedex 20 France [e-mail:
firdion@ined.fr]
567
C
2007 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

2. 568 Firdion and Marpsat
in 1998, with a sample of 461 youths aged 16–24 (Marpsat, Firdion, Meron,
2000), and a study of the low-income housing stock and its evolution between 1984
and 1992 (Arbonville, 2000). In 2001, the French National Institute of Statistics
(INSEE) conducted a national survey based on INED’s methodology. Some of
the first results of this national survey are also summarized here. These homeless
surveys remain, to date, among only a few large representative surveys conducted
in Europe on the issue of homelessness, and the first to have been conducted in
France.
The Development of French Research on the Homeless
The first of the two innovative surveys conducted in Paris by INED in 1995 was
part of a larger project. In response to requests from a number of major voluntary
organizations, the National Council on Statistical Information (CNIS) established
a working group to prepare a plan for the scientific study of living conditions of
the homeless, the processes whereby people become homeless, and the difficulties
they face in obtaining housing (CNIS, 1996).
CNIS provides a forum for providers and users of official statistics. Its au-
thority rests on its broad representativeness, which spans employers’ and trade
associations, labor unions, nonprofit and government agencies, national and re-
gional political assemblies, universities, and individual experts.
The first INED survey was one of several studies that took place in 1994–
1995, under the auspices of the newly born CNIS group in charge of homelessness
and exclusion from housing. The CNIS group focused on households under threat
of eviction; on the housing conditions of very poor, at-risk households; and on
literally homeless persons (including the INED survey described here). INED’s
research was conducted in partnership with voluntary organizations and other
agencies working with the homeless.
The Methodology of INED’s Surveys
The methods used in these surveys are an adaptation to French conditions of
the methods used in the United States (U.S.) by the Research Triangle Institute,
the Urban Institute, and lately the Bureau of the Census (Burt, 1992; Dennis
Iachan, 1993; Burt et al., 1999, 2001; Marpsat Firdion, 1998, 2000).
Respondents
The population targeted by the INED studies consists of people spending the
night in shelters or in public places. Using a method borrowed from U.S. research,
the sites of distribution of services to the homeless were chosen as the sampling
locations (such as shelters, food programs, and, in the case of the 1998 youth

3. Homelessness in France 569
survey, drop-in centers), providing an almost complete coverage of the population
involved (for an overview of methodological issues in surveys about homeless
population in Europe, see http://www.cuhp.org).
In the food distribution centers and drop-in centers, we also found a small
number of individuals who were housed in conditions of extreme insecurity (e.g.,
doubled-up). The results presented below relate only to people who are homeless
in the “literal” sense of the term, i.e., those who were actually sleeping on the
streets or in a shelter at the time of the survey.
Sample and Data Collection
A representative sample of service users was constructed through a two-stage
random sampling process. Five hundred ninety-one persons were interviewed (and
461 for the youth survey in 1998), 41% of the people contacted by the interview-
ers refused the interview or were unfit (drunk, mentally ill, not French speaking,
etc.). The questionnaire covers a broad range of topics: the demographic char-
acteristics of the respondents, their residential and family histories, major events
during childhood, contact with the family, work, education and occupation, access
to health care, financial resources, and their use of services to compute corrective
weightings (Marpsat Firdion, 1998).
The number of homeless young people was too small in the 1995 sample
to make a separate study of their living conditions, which led us to conduct a
separate survey on homeless youth in 1998 (then adding day drop-in centers to the
sampling location because homeless youth are more reluctant to use shelters). In
both of these surveys, ethical issues were considered: In view of the lack of private
space and the difficult living conditions of the homeless, a great deal of attention
was devoted to the way in which contact was to be established with the participants
and the manner of conducting the interview (Firdion, Marpsat, Bozon, 1995).
Though the primary goal of these surveys was to increase our knowledge
about homelessness, this type of survey, when extended to an entire country, gives
an estimate of the number of homeless users of services, as was done by the Urban
Institute for the U.S. in 1987 (Burt, 1991) and 1996 (Burt, 2001), and in France
by the INSEE, which estimated (for the year 2001) the number of the homeless
at 63,500 adults in an average week, along with 16,000 children under age 18
(Brousse et al., 2002a, 2002b). Based on the same sampling methods, a survey
on homelessness and mental health was conducted in Paris in 1996 (Kovess
Mangin-Lazarus, 1999).
INSEE’s National Survey on Homelessness
ThisfirstFrenchnationalsurveyonhomelessnessconductedbyourcolleagues
atINSEEwasbasedonasampleof4,084personsusingsheltersandfoodprograms.

4. 570 Firdion and Marpsat
The results are representative of the persons having made use of such services in
cities of 20,000 inhabitants or more. The survey was completed by 322 interviewers
in 20 (out of 22) regions of continental France, in 80 cities and 846 sites. The first
results were published in 2002.
Main Characteristics and Living Conditions of Homeless People in France
It is important to take into account both contextual factors (e.g., industrial
restructuring) and individual factors (e.g., low qualifications) to explain why some
people are at greater risk than others of losing their home. Those with limited
material or relational resources, or whose skills are obsolete, may end up on the
street. They may be at particular risk in a period of employment crisis, when
family and professional relationships are under strain, and when low-cost housing
is increasingly scarce.
Contextual Factors
Because of the lack of full time and permanent jobs (and specifically low-
skilled jobs) and the limitations of unemployment benefits, the resources of single
adults or families drop dramatically after a lay off, while young adults have dif-
ficulty entering the labor market. The result is a decrease in people’s ability to
afford housing and to remain in the social mainstream. In combination with these
elements, personal problems and deficits can increase the risk of homelessness.
These negative factors often originate in childhood and are linked to poverty and
low socioeconomic status. For example, poor physical and mental health as an
adult is strongly related to bad living conditions during childhood (e.g., poor fam-
ily, illegal migrants, war in the country of origin) and poor health can reduce
employability (for the French case, see, Moulin et al., 2005; for the Europe, see,
Chauvin, 2002; Paugam, 1996; and Shaw, Dorling, Davey-Smith 2001; for the
USA see, Diez-Roux, 1998, and Korenman Miller, 1997).
Inexpensive housing tends to be found in the private sector, where it is gener-
ally of bad quality, as well as in public housing. Cheap housing in the private sector
(e.g., rented rooms, low-comfort flats) is progressively disappearing, though it is
the only option for people who are in illegal situations, or do not meet the con-
ditions for accessibility to public housing. Eligibility for public housing requires
that income be under a threshold (to exclude the most affluent) but also over an-
other threshold (to ensure that the tenants will be able to pay their rent). However,
some diversity among tenants is desired by many organizations in charge of public
housing, in order to avoid creating social ghettos.
In 2003 public housing comprised 16% of all dwellings in France. If this rate
of 16% were to be maintained, 56,000 new dwellings should be produced each
year in the public housing sector. However, if the program of urban renovation

5. Homelessness in France 571
envisioned by the Urban Department is implemented, part of the public housing
built a few decades ago will be destroyed, requiring 90,000 new dwellings to be
built annually. This is to be compared with the fact that the construction of public
housing has shown a significant decline from the middle of the 1990s to reach a
level of less than 40,000 new dwellings annually since the beginning of the 2000s.
Housing benefits also exist in France to help households meet their housing costs,
but there is a debate on whether this may be a factor in the rise of rents.
In this section we explore the demographic and social characteristics and the
residential histories of the literally homeless using shelters and food services in the
city of Paris (suburbs not included). We also consider these individuals’ present
living conditions. The estimations given in the text are calculated on weighted
numbers and refer to individuals using services on an average day of the survey
period. Whenever possible, comparisons with the French housed population will
be made.
International comparisons suffer from two kinds of problems, which make
it difficult to establish and interpret comparable results: those arising from dif-
ferences in methodology, definitions, and sampling; and those arising from dif-
ferences in policies designed to relieve poverty, help homeless people, and deal
with immigration or mental illness. However, as the methodology of the INED
surveys is close to the one used by several U.S. studies, some comparisons are
possible. Broad similarities are noted between Paris and cities in the U.S. on de-
mographic characteristics such as age, gender, and marital status. However, the
homeless appear to have a higher rate of psychiatric disorders in Paris and alcohol-
and drug-related problems seem to be less extensive in Paris than in U.S. cities
(Kovess, 2002). Although most of the following material on the characteristics of
the homeless is largely derived from the INED surveys done in Paris, the initial
findings from INSEE’s national survey are generally consistent with what has been
found in Paris.
Women and Elderly People Are Underrepresented
The INED survey found a particularly small proportion of women among
the homeless (17%). This low representation reduces the reliability of the results
for women, particularly when considering some phenomena with low base rates
amongthesewomen,suchashavingpreviouslyhadone’sowndwellingorcurrently
being employed. This proportion is close to that identified in the U.S. (19% in
1987 for American cities with over 100,000 inhabitants; Burt Cohen, 1989a),
or in different U.S. and European cities (Marpsat, 2000): Women were found to
account for 17% of the homeless in Los Angeles (Koegel, Melamid, Burnam
1995), 24% in Washington, DC (NIDA, 1993), 19% in Vienna (Kofler, 1999)
and 21% in Madrid (Vazquez, Muñoz, Sanz, 1997). Several reasons can be
advanced to explain this phenomenon. First, women who are having financial,

6. 572 Firdion and Marpsat
psychological or other difficulties can usually count on family support and are
often put up by family members or friends for some time, the more so since
alcohol-and-drug related problems are less common among women than among
men (Kovess Mangin-Lazarus, 1999), and because lacking a regular job is still
socially more acceptable for women. Second, women may be more reluctant to end
uponthestreets,especiallywhentheyhavechildren,andthusmaybemorelikelyto
tolerate situations of family crisis and abuse to avoid the streets. This tendency may
be reinforced in some cases when there is not enough accommodation available for
women (e.g., waiting lists, unsuccessful requests to be re-housed). Finally, because
of the priority given to women, especially those with children, by various service
organizations, they tend to be re-housed more quickly in hotels and hostels not
primarily intended for the homeless (and which for this reason are not covered by
our survey), or in more stable accommodations.
The homeless women present in our surveys were seldom interviewed on
the streets, in hot meals distributions, or in emergency shelters. Rather they were
typically found in long-stay shelters where they were often living with all or some
of their children. This maternal role perhaps accounts for the fact that the women
interviewed were below the average age for Paris (55% of the homeless women
were under 35 years compared with 34% for those with housing), while for men
the concentration occurs in the middle aged group (61% of the homeless men were
between 35–59 years, while the Paris average for the housed is 42% for this age
group). The feminization of poverty in France since the 1980s has put single
women and female-headed families more at risk of becoming homeless. Low-
skilled young women often have difficulty entering the labor market and gaining
permanent jobs, as employers may fear they are likely to take maternity leave.
Mothers of young children have some difficulty arranging for the care of their
children while they are at work, and are more likely to struggle with the effects
of divorce (more frequent during the first years of a marriage). Although women
usually succeed in avoiding the streets, those who cannot escape from economic
hardship or who are subjected to family violence, still can end up in a shelter or
cheap hotels.
The age distribution of the homeless in Paris in 1995 is quite comparable with
that found in Washington or other main U.S. cities, according to the results of the
1991 Research Triangle Institute survey and the 1987 Urban Institute survey. The
small proportion of elderly people of either sex among the homeless may be due
to the existence of other institutional structures (e.g., nursing homes) for persons
over the age of 60 years. But it may also simply reflect the harsh conditions of
life on the streets, which can contribute to early death (according to Wright
Rubin, 1998, the average age at death for homeless Americans is around 50 years;
comparable figures for France are not yet available).
The fairly low proportion of young men in the survey may be due to the
limited types of services sampled (i.e., homeless people using shelters and food

7. Homelessness in France 573
programs). Young people are perhaps less willing to become involved in what they
perceive as too heavily regimented structures. Also, if they are jobless they cannot
make use of the shelters for which a small financial contribution is often required,
since most of them cannot claim the Guaranteed Minimum Income that the French
government provides to poor people. Unlike the young men, young women with
children often receive welfare payments. It is not unusual for men in this position
to have their own way of “coping.” They sell street newspapers, beg, and/or live
in squats and consequently make very little use of the specialized services for the
homeless, although small numbers were surveyed in soup kitchens and other food
programs. Others live in hostels not primarily intended for the homeless. This is
why we added day drop-in centers to the shelters and food programs in our 1998
survey on homeless youth (Marpsat, Firdion, Meron, 2000; Marpsat Firdion,
2001).
Service Utilization
The different elements that allow the homeless to organize their day-to-day
lives, in particular their relations with service provision systems, are examined in
greater detail in Marpsat and Firdion (2000). According to these surveys, places
where homeless people spend the night can be arranged on a hierarchy (from
the worst to the best) as with conventional dwellings. Although evening food
programs are widely used, most homeless people do not eat regularly. Having a
place to receive mail helps maintain social links and contact with services. Medical
coverage of the homeless population has been recently improved, thanks to a new
social security health insurance for the poor, but new restrictions on the state
medical aid for illegal migrants are now planned that jeopardize this improvement
among this population with a very poor physical and mental health status.
By studying service use, we can better appreciate the gap between the services
offered and the needs of the homeless population (concerning where to sleep, eat,
and get medical care), according to their characteristics. We can see improvements
(for example medical coverage) but also difficulties in providing good accommo-
dations in an emergency context.
Somewhere to sleep. The places where homeless people spend the night are
extremely varied. Some use shelters on a very regular basis (58% of men, 72%
of women). Others use them only occasionally and, instead, rely on squats, help
from parents and friends, and hotel rooms paid for by voluntary organizations or
with money from begging, work, or money from social benefits (RMI or minimum
wages, disability or child benefits), while it lasts.
The shelters for the homeless are themselves extremely disparate. At one
extreme are the large anonymous shelters. These are free and open to everyone
and represent a last resort for the most derelict or for illegal immigrants, and

8. 574 Firdion and Marpsat
despite recent improvements; their standards of comfort, hygiene and safety are
sometimes inadequate. In these shelters, there is often no possibility of leaving
one’s possessions or reserving a bed from one night to the next. At the other
extreme, there are the small, friendlier shelters, where the rooms contain just a few
beds, which provide long-stay accommodation (for usually 6-month periods with
the possibility of renewal); however, they often require a financial contribution
and set conditions for admission, and residents are expected to accept support and
counseling from social workers. Residents are often also expected to participate in
programs aimed at helping them handle problems pertaining to their administrative
status, health and resources, and at finding a job and somewhere to live. Between
these two extremes, there exists a wide range of facilities provided by shelters
that make varying efforts to adapt to the profiles of their respective clienteles (see
Marpsat Firdion, 2000).
We will now focus on the respondents’ use of shelters for the homeless in the
week prior to the survey, and on their answers as to where they spent the previous
night. As in the American and European surveys already cited, in France women
were in general much less likely than men to resort to solutions which left them
most exposed, such as sleeping in the street, in the communal areas of apartment
buildings (halls, staircases), in cars, etc. When female service users were not in
shelters for the homeless, they tended to be living in hotels, staying with friends or
in squats (11% of them), and when they did use homeless shelters (83% of them)
it was mainly the long-stay establishments.
Turning to the question of where the men had slept during the week prior
to the Paris survey, three groups of roughly equal size can be identified. A first
group includes men who used the same emergency shelter on a regular basis.
The second includes those who used the same long-stay shelter. Finally, there
were men who moved between different shelters (this may be because they had
reached the maximum authorized length of stay but could also reflect a desire for
a change) or who used other available solutions, frequently changing on a daily
basis. On the night before the survey, only 8% had slept outdoors or in some form of
makeshift shelter, 12% in various precarious situations (doubling up, hotel, squat,
or a “permanent” facility such as working men’s hostels which sometimes accept
homeless persons), and 72% in a shelter.
In addition to the fact that provisions for the homeless have improved, this
low percentage of people sleeping rough is certainly due in part to the conditions
of the survey (people currently sleeping on the streets were contacted only through
food programs). However, a number of tests carried out in the street at night by the
INED team and others (Kovess Mangin-Lazarus, 1999), have shown that most
homeless people who sleep on the streets do make use of the food programs at
least once a week in the course of the survey (for details, see Marpsat Firdion,
2000, Chapter 5). After the INSEE national homeless survey, INED conducted a
survey of outreach program clients in 2002, in three major French cities, to study

9. Homelessness in France 575
the coverage of the national survey (Marpsat, Quaglia, Razafindratsima, 2005).
As in various American surveys (NIDA, 1993; Toro et al., 1999), we found that
the vast majority of people living on the streets either sometimes slept in shelters
or made use of food programs.
It follows that it is unlikely that this type of survey would fail to reach the
most socially outcast individuals. Rather, those most likely to be left out are those
who are not homeless in the literal sense but who manage to survive on the edge
of homelessness thanks to a system of individual resourcefulness. In this way they
can sleep in a rented room or in a squat on a regular basis, and have enough money
so as not to need help from specialized social services.
Somewhere to eat. Homeless people do not always get regular meals, which
may have negative consequences for their health. In the 1987 Urban Institute survey
of homeless people in American cities of over 100,000 inhabitants, 46% had not
eaten at all on at least one day in the week prior to the survey, and those who had
eaten had an extremely unbalanced food intake. Going without a midday meal is
fairly common. In the Paris survey, only 59% of men and 78% of women had eaten
at midday everyday in the week prior to the survey, including those who had just
a sandwich, while 16% of men and 10% of women had not eaten in the middle of
the day at all during the previous week.
Food programs were widely used, particularly in the evening, with 63% of
men and 67% of women having had their meals there on at least five evenings of
the week. Although levels of use were lower for the midday meal, and many did
not have regular meals, 26% of the men and 39% of the women had eaten in a
service at lunchtime and in the evening on every day of the previous week.
Somewhere to receive mail. When homeless people receive mail it usually
goes to an address of a service provider, such as a long-stay shelter (55% of women
and 26% of men) or a voluntary organization (16% of women, 24% of men). The
fact of receiving no mail at all, or of feeling no need for a mailing address, was
more common among men. Voluntary organizations have fought to be able to
give a legal address to homeless people as they think that receiving mail gives the
possibility to maintain contact with social services and potential employers, helps
to preserve social links, and is necessary to receive benefits or be covered by the
CMU.
Medical services. Changes to the medical coverage of poor people (and hence
of the homeless) have been significant in the last ten years. The Paris 1995 ques-
tionnaire explored the respondents’ degree of coverage by social security health
insurance. The answers to these questions were used to define six levels of health
coverage, ranging from no coverage at all to those who had the Paris Health Card
(which allows impoverished inhabitants of the city to obtain free treatment and
prescriptions, under certain conditions). In 1995, to meet the costs of getting health

10. 576 Firdion and Marpsat
care, 26% of the homeless had the Paris Health Card (23% of men, 41% of women).
At the other extreme, 17% of the homeless had no medical coverage at all (18% of
men, 11% of women), while 8% had only an expired medical coverage, which can
make it easier to re-establish an earlier entitlement (in comparison with the 55% of
currently homeless respondents who were without insurance in the 1996 national
homeless survey in the U.S.; Burt et al., 1999). Twenty percent of respondents
were in the position of having to pay a proportion, typically around one-third, of
the cost of treatment and prescriptions, the rest being paid by the social security
system. Lastly, 14% of the homeless were exempt from paying such a propor-
tion because they had a serious illness (13% of men, 19% of women), while 8%
received completely free medical care.
In spite of the Health Card, the Paris homeless surveyed in 1995 appeared
to have poor health coverage compared with the rest of the population, given the
large proportion without any coverage at all (Lecomte, Mizrahi Mizrahi, 2000).
Medical coverage was higher among those with a place in long-stay shelters,
while it was much lower among people who slept on the streets or had unstable
accommodation. Residents of long-stay shelters are helped in various ways with
the intention of encouraging their reinsertion into society, and efforts are made to
help them re-establish or claim their entitlements, in particular those relating to
health care.
The problems of people without any medical coverage at all have been partly
solved, at least for those whose presence in France is legal and stable, by the
universal health coverage (couverture maladie universelle or CMU) implemented
in 2000. The CMU extends free medical coverage to persons whose resources are
beneath a given threshold (Boisguérin, 2003). There is a “basic CMU” for those
who cannot be covered otherwise and a “complementary CMU” to help meet the
costs of the proportion of expenses not paid by the social security system. All
persons who have a legal and stable residence in France are eligible to receive
the CMU. In fact, the 2001 national INSEE survey found that only 8% of the
French-speaking homeless had no medical coverage, among whom 7 out of 10
were foreigners; 60% benefited from the CMU, basic or complementary (de La
Rochère, 2003).
To complement the CMU, the state medical aid (aide médicale d’Etat ou
AME) extends medical coverage to impoverished people who do not meet the
conditions of stability and legality of stay in France. However, the conditions to
benefit from this measure are becoming more restrictive and there will now (at
the beginning of 2004) be a part left to pay for those who benefit from it. All this
may have a negative effect on the health of homeless people who are illegally in
France and more generally on public health.
Mental health. In 1996, Kovess and Mangin-Lazarus conducted a survey
in Paris, using INED’s sampling method, on a sample of 838 homeless persons.

11. Homelessness in France 577
They evaluated mental health using the Composite International Diagnostic Inter-
view or CIDI (for more details and comparisons with the U.S., and Europe, see
Kovess, 2002, and Lovell, 1992). According to these authors, the prevalence of
psychiatric disorders among homeless individuals in Paris over the year preced-
ing the survey was estimated at 29%: 6% for schizophrenic/delusional disorders,
24% for emotional disorders (20% for depressive disorders alone), 21% for sub-
stance dependency/use (15% for alcohol, 10% for drugs). This shows that, even
if they are higher than in the general population, these rates are far below 50%;
and the popular image of homeless people as being all intoxicated or mentally ill
is unfounded.
Kovess (2001) found that the Parisian rates of mental illness among the home-
less were higher than those reported in the U.S. or in Australia, except for substance
disorders, but closer to those of the European studies. Alcohol abuse, however, had
very different prevalence from one country to another, and was lower in Paris than
in other places (15% for the one-year prevalence, as opposed to, for example, a
point-prevalence of 26% in Madrid or a prevalence of alcohol abuse in the past 12
months of 40% in Los Angeles). In Paris, alcohol abuse seemed to depend on place
of birth, since the prevalence was higher for respondents born in France (60% of
the sample). It could be argued that a large proportion of Parisian respondents
born in foreign countries are from Muslim countries, and may drink less alcohol
or have more difficulty admitting to alcohol use. The prevalence of drug problems
is lower in France than in studies of non-European countries, but it is closer to
that observed in European studies; drug problems are also more frequent among
young people and men. The prevalence of psychological problems may be higher
in the Parisian sample compared with samples in other countries because the safety
net (e.g., minimum income, medical coverage) is better and enables most people
to escape the street, while mentally ill people are still vulnerable (perhaps due to
desinstitutionalization).
Other Basic Characteristics
Some of the basic characteristics of the homeless may contribute to explain
their present difficulties, such as factors restricting economic resources during
childhood and at a later age (e.g., coming from a large family or a poor social
background, having a low educational qualification, conflicts with the family dur-
ing childhood, death of one’s parents).
Homeless people often come from large families. The people in the Paris
survey often came from large families. Only one fifth had no brothers or sisters,
whereas one third had five or more. Comparisons with other surveys are unfortu-
nately hard to make since these figures are based on the respondents’ spontaneous
declarations and it was not specified whether the brothers and sisters were all of

12. 578 Firdion and Marpsat
the same parents, the main purpose of the question being to identify the social and
family contacts that remained. More generally, in France, despite family benefits,
large families are known to have fewer resources, which may lead to a greater risk
of family members eventually becoming homeless.
Poor social background. One in five homeless individuals, men and women,
were not aware of the occupation or last occupation of their parents. This was
very often because the father or mother was either unknown or had died when the
respondent was too young to remember his or her occupation. For the homeless
men and women who did know their father’s occupation, almost half had a father
who was a manual worker “when they were 16,” compared with a third of the
residents of the Paris region whose father was a manual worker “at the end of their
studies” (INSEE, Labour Force survey 1995). The proportion of homeless persons
whose father was a manager or member of the intermediate professions is much
smaller than that among the non-homeless population of Paris region.
Among about half of the homeless men and women who were aware of their
mother’s occupation, the mother had never worked. The mothers who did work
were mainly manual workers or low-level clerical and service sector workers.
Difficult life histories. Among the homeless men, one in four had not been
living with either parent at age 16. One in six at this age had a father who was either
unknown to them or dead, and the proportion with a mother who was unknown
or dead was one in ten. For homeless women the percentages were only slightly
lower.
At age 16 nearly one in ten homeless persons had lived in foster care as
children, such as in a department of social services children’s home, in a foster
family or a specialized residential institution.1
This estimation for the homeless
in Paris is very high in comparison with the 1% of under-20s who have been in
foster care among the French population as a whole, and the 2% of children of
manual workers of the same age group. It is to be noted that this proportion is even
higher among the 16–24 age group in INED’s 1998 survey (31%). The correlation
between being in foster care as a child and subsequent homelessness is especially
difficult to analyze, since a young person’s risk of being placed in care is itself also
related to the social level of his/her family of origin and family poverty (Firdion,
2006). In addition, the social problems subsequently observed could be due less to
having been in care and more to the conditions in which the child grew up that led
to the child being put in foster care. In any case, though the definitions are slightly
different from one survey to another, several U.S. authors have also noted high
1
Our estimation (10% of men and 6.5% of women) slightly understates the phenomenon since it
does not take into account other situations which may include cases of local authority care or foster
families, such as the fact of being housed by an employer at age 16 or being a boarder at school. In
addition, periods in care when very young but which did not continue up to age 16 go unrecorded.

13. Homelessness in France 579
rates among the homeless population of having had out-of-home care experience
as children, such as being raised in a foster home or a group home: 39% in a
Minneapolis sample (Sosin, Piliavin, Westerfelt, 1990), 25% in a Los Angeles
sample (Koegel, Melamid, Burnam, 1995), and 27% in the 1996 national survey
(Burt et al., 1999).
Roughly a third of Paris homeless men and women reported having expe-
rienced before the age of 18 a negative event that had major consequences for
them. In addition to parental death and foster care, such events included parental
separation and quarrels, domestic violence, problems related to the individual’s
health, periods in prison, and alcohol and drug abuse. After age 18 an increase is
observed in the frequency of problems related to health and substance abuse and
to periods in prison, as well as difficulties in romantic relationships. Other diffi-
culties affecting respondents of foreign origin relate to conditions in their country
of origin, such as economic problems and armed conflicts in which some had lost
all the members of their family.
At all ages, the homeless also made reference to the happy events which had
marked their lives such as the birth of a child, their arrival in France, earning their
first wages, etc. This provided a reminder that, although for most of them life had
been difficult; they had also had some positive moments.
Few men with children. Slightly more than half the men and women reported
neverhavingbeenmarried.Roughlyonethirdreportedbeingdivorcedorseparated.
These figures are very similar to those found in the U.S. (Burt Cohen, 1989 a;
Burt et al., 1999, 2001; NIDA, 1993). Just one third of the Paris homeless women
had no children. Among the women who had children, a proportion did not live
with some or all of their children, either because the children were already grown-
up in the case of older women, or because they were in foster care or living with the
other partner or with other members of the family. Overall, only 37% of homeless
women actually lived with at least one child (compared with 38% of homeless
women in the U.S.; Burt et al., 1999). The proportion for men was insignificant
and concerned those living with partners and children in shelters that cater to
families.
Educational qualifications. Approximately 40% of respondents reported
having no educational qualifications. To assess the labor market prospects of those
with qualifications, it is necessary to consider not only the level of the qualifica-
tion but also whether it was obtained in France or abroad. The value of foreign
qualifications is not always recognized by potential employers. Of the 60% who
had qualifications, approximately two thirds had French qualifications and one
third had foreign qualifications. The qualifications gained in France were mostly
in the field of vocational training. The qualifications from abroad were divided
fairly equally between general and vocational subjects, although the differences
between the educational systems make it hard to be more precise. The same lack

14. 580 Firdion and Marpsat
of qualifications was found among the homeless and precariously housed youth
surveyed in 1998: half had no diploma.
Geographical Origins and Residential History
Geographical mobility. The homeless are more likely than other inhabitants
of the Paris region to come from the provinces outside Paris (36% of men, 32% of
women), France’s Overseas Departments (DOM), or from abroad (40% of men,
49% of women). However, similar and even higher proportions of foreign-born
people are found in some areas of the Paris region designated as areas of spe-
cial urban policy. It would appear that the homeless share these characteristics
with the poor and those in difficult social conditions. To take the analysis further
would require studying the date of arrival in France and knowing the status of the
immigrants and their reason for coming to France.
It seems that, since 1995, the number of migrants, in particular from African
and Eastern European countries (the latter represented 6% in the 1998 survey on
homeless youth) and of asylum seekers has increased in Paris. As it is presently
(2004) illegal for asylum seekers to take a job, they may have particular difficulty
finding housing, which may lead to an increase in homelessness in Paris.
Contrasting residential histories. Some of the homeless had gone directly
from their home to the street or shelter, whereas others had experienced a period
of being housed by family or friends. Another group had lived in institutional
accommodations or in hostels. Finally, there were those who in losing their job
had lost the housing that went with it (such as army barracks or construction site
trailers).
For 28% of both men and women, the last place they had lived in for longer
than three months, excluding squats, was someone else’s home (family, friends; in
some cases a romantic partner). Only a third of those in this position had previously
had housing as tenants or owner-occupiers. The other two-thirds had never had
a place to live of their own: Some had only experienced makeshift dwellings or
institutional accommodation (e.g., residential care homes, hostels, prison). Slightly
more than one in ten homeless people reported having always lived in unstable
forms of housing.
More than half of the men and women reported their last stable housing as
being an owned or rented apartment or house. If we also include those who had
moved out of this type of housing but who had experienced a fairly long period
of being housed by someone else prior to their present situation, the proportions
rise to nearly 70% for men and women. The results presented below concern this
group who had experienced these types of stable housing. For women the numbers
actually involved are small and on some questions we report only the situation of
men.

15. Homelessness in France 581
More than half these (once stably housed) women reported separation from
their partner as the reason for losing their home and, among these, slightly less
than half mentioned physical abuse by their partner, perpetrated on themselves or
on their children. The other reasons given by women were divided fairly equally
between financial reasons (e.g., difficulty paying rent or bills, loss of job or welfare
entitlement), reasons related to an eviction or the demolition of the building occu-
pied, and a variety of miscellaneous reasons such as time spent in a hospital or a
prison term for a member of the household. (The question dealing with the reasons
for the loss of housing could have several answers, so the results are not mutually
exclusive.) Family-related reasons were less frequently given by men than women
(roughly a third of men), and were in equal proportion to those pertaining to jobs
and financial difficulties.
Following the loss of their homes, almost seven in ten of the (once stably
housed) men had not looked for another place to live, and for women the proportion
was one in two. The usual reasons for this were not being able to pay, joblessness,
and the inability to prove prior employment for those working in undeclared or
illegal jobs. Similarly, among those who had looked for a new place to live but had
not been successful, nearly seven in ten attributed their failure to find housing to
the inability to pay the rent or deposit.
Nearly a quarter of the men had stayed at their previous residence less than
two years. On the other hand, almost 20% of men had lived in their previous home
for over ten years. Women demonstrated even higher rates of residential stability.
The duration of the current episode of homelessness seems to be shorter for
women than for men, with most of the women having been homeless less than six
months. For the men, approximately one in ten had been homeless for less than
six months, and the same proportion had been homeless longer than ten years.
This difference according to gender seems to be the same in the U.S. (e.g., Burt
Cohen, 1989b).
Social and Economic Networks
The homeless keep in touch with their family of origin. One of the main
problems mentioned by the homeless is that of social isolation (FNARS, 1997).
However, most do have some contact with family, although this contact is not (or
is no longer) tied to an offer of somewhere to stay. Even after controlling for age,
the Paris homeless were found to have maintained less contact with their families
of origin than the rest of the population, a result which comes as no surprise when
it is remembered that a quarter were already separated from their family at age 16.
However, 70% of the Paris homeless (64% for men and 83% for women) reported
having recent contact (during the month before the survey) with some member
of their family, parents, children, or other relative. In this respect too, the Paris

16. 582 Firdion and Marpsat
homeless are not so different from their American counterparts as Schlay and
Rossi (1992) and Toro et al. (1999) both found that 50% to 91% of the homeless
surveyed had retained contact with a member of their family.
Asking questions about the respondent’s natural family almost always raises
delicate problems. It is something that respondents often find hard to talk about;
theyarelikelytobetornbetweenhavingnothingmoretodowiththefamilybecause
they have rejected it or because they are ashamed of their current plight, preferring
to initiate contact on their ‘good days’ when they can hide their difficulties, and
wanting to benefit from any surviving sense of family solidarity. It may be added
that their family of origin, when it still exists as such, is often itself also facing
difficulties.
Income from welfare payments but also from work. The single most impor-
tant resource for approximately half the men and women took the form of social
transfer payments, usually the RMI for the men (28% as main resource), and child-
related allowances for the women (21% as main resource). Some respondents were
disqualified from claiming the RMI because they were younger than 25, foreign-
ers not eligible because of their length of stay, or illegal migrants. Income from
work came second, and was more frequent for women (34% as main resource)
than for men (24%). A larger proportion of men reported gifts, such as money
from begging, gifts from charities, strangers, friends, parents, etc. (14% of men,
and 10% of women), or reported having no source of income (nearly 10% of men,
compared with 14% for single homeless clients of both sexes in Burt et al., 1999).
According to the 1998 survey on Paris homeless youth, money from begging, or
given in the street, was more frequent for young men than for young women, while
women were more likely to receive money from various agencies and charities.
Non take-up has been studied for the homeless in the whole of France. Ac-
cording to various hypotheses, the percentage of homeless people eligible to RMI
and not getting it has been estimated between 5% and 15% (Avenel Damon,
2003).
Most had worked in the past though few were presently employed. Homeless
people have numerous difficulties in getting or keeping a job. Employers are
reluctant to take on homeless applicants, who in turn have difficulty maintaining a
neat appearance or respecting working times that do not fit in with shelter opening
hours. These multiple problems are accurately encapsulated by the phrase that is
often heard: ‘no job, no home; no home, no job.’ When jobs are found they are
often unstable, in the form of government-subsidized jobs (one-third of working
men in the 1995 Paris survey) or short-term contracts (one-quarter of working
men), or are with the organizations that provide services for the homeless (e.g.,
working the switchboard, in the laundry, gardening).
Although only one fourth of homeless men currently had a job, 95% had
worked at some point in their lives, usually as unskilled manual workers. Of the

17. Homelessness in France 583
men, 28% had at some point had a job which involved moving around (e.g., the
army, transports and building industries). A slightly higher proportion of women
had never worked, but a higher proportion (just under half) had paid jobs at the
time of the survey, many of them with the organizations that provided them with
services.
The INSEE national survey conducted in 2001 confirms the results presented
here; however, compared to persons living in other urban areas, the Parisian home-
less find work more often, and live in more precarious conditions (more often on
the street or in very large emergency shelters; Debras Dorothée, 2002).
Conclusion
What emerges from these surveys of the literally homeless in France is their
social proximity to other people who are living in conditions of poverty and eco-
nomic insecurity, confirming that the homeless cannot be considered as forming
a distinct social category. Our findings have also drawn attention to the diversity
of the individuals involved with regard to their backgrounds and behaviors. Two
widely-held images of the homeless, that of the “clochard” (derelict, “bum”) who
supposedly has chosen to live in the street, and the other which shows them as “peo-
ple like you and me” (an image that denies the role of poverty), are too schematic
to describe accurately the reality of French homelessness. The perception about
most homeless people as either alcoholics or mentally ill is equally inaccurate
(Kovess Mangin-Lazarus, 1999). Among the factors leading to situations of
homelessness, the role of past living conditions, when the person was young, and
of his/her socio-professional background, appears to be confirmed. This suggests
that preventive policy on homelessness must not just focus on keeping people in
their homes and giving them access to housing, but also contribute to the more
general struggle against all aspects of poverty.
The data presented here deal mainly with Paris. Thanks to the 2001 national
survey, comparable situations at the national level are being examined and differ-
ences between the capital and the other French regions are being studied, which
should enhance our understanding of the problem. Possible seasonal effects on
the composition of the homeless population also remain to be measured. In the
future, attention must be focused on the dynamic components of homelessness,
so as to improve our understanding of its different aspects. Longitudinal methods
at an individual level, such as panel data or record-based studies, could help us
understand the factors that influence the length of stay in homelessness and the
exit from it, but also the role of social policies.
A full understanding of the situation of the homeless also requires an analysis
of the institutions providing services (Soulié, 2000). Such a study can help explain
their living conditions and behavior, the role of volunteer workers, the difficulties
experienced by the provider institutions—and by the social workers attached to

18. 584 Firdion and Marpsat
them—as they try to combine a response to emergency situations with efforts to
promote social reintegration and the necessity of prevention.
During the last decade, social policies were more often devoted to social
emergency programs targeted towards very poor populations. At the same time,
some social rights were restricted (for example, unemployment benefits since
1992) and prevention policies (to prevent loss of job and home) were regarded
as less important. Some analysts now believe that this shift in social policies
cannot address the growth of the population of working poor, who are particularly
vulnerable to homelessness. They think that the rise of precarious low paid jobs
is linked to the forsaking of social policies assigned to large segments of the
population (on a universal basis) and the focus maintained on the poorest by
an emergency approach (Concialdi 2003). Lastly, the analysis of individual data
pertaining to the homeless only becomes fully meaningful alongside a structural
analysis of housing and employment conditions, as well as of the changes affecting
family structures. A study was thus made by INED (Arbonville, 2000), which
documented the increase in the number of people made vulnerable by joblessness,
unstable employment, family breakdown, and the decrease in the available quantity
of low-cost housing to which they have access. This research showed that low-cost
housing comes in extremely varied forms and that its gradual disappearance is
creating problems which public housing has been so far unable to solve for an
increasing number of people.
References
Arbonville, D. (2000). Normalisation de l’habitat et accès au logement entre 1984 et 1992, une étude
du ‘parc social de fait’. [Residential standardization and housing access, 1984–1992. A study
of the stock of low-quality, low-cost dwellings]. In M. Marpsat J.-M. Firdion (Eds.), La rue
et le foyer. Une recherche sur les sans-domicile et les mal-logés dans les années 90 (pp. 31–62).
Paris: PUF.
Avenel, M., Damon, J. (2003). Les contacts avec les intervenants sociaux des sans-domicile usagers
des services d’hébergement et de distribution de repas chauds. Quel recours aux institutions,
aux prestations et aux professionnels des secteurs sanitaire et social? [Contacts with service
providers for the homeless using shelters and food programs: How do they make referrals, to
institutions, social welfare, and health and social service professionals?], Etudes et Résultats,
p. 277. Paris: DREES.
Boisguérin, B. (2003). L’impact de la CMU sur la consommation individuelle de soins [The impact of
the universal health coverage on the individual consumption of health care]. Etudes et Résultats
(p. 229). Paris: DREES.
Brousse, C., de la Rochère, B., Massé, E. (2002a). Hébergement et distribution de repas chauds. Le
cas des sans-domicile [Shelter and food programs. The case of the homeless]. Insee-Première,
823, 1–4.
Brousse, C., de la Rochère, B., Massé, E. (2002b). Hébergement et distribution de repas chauds. Qui
sont les sans-domicile usagers de ces services [Shelter and food programs. Which homeless
people use these services]. Insee-Première, 824, 1–4.
Burt, M. R. (1991). Developing the estimate of 500,000–600,000 homeless people in the United States
in 1987. In C. Taeuber (Ed.), Conference Proceedings for Enumerating Homeless persons:
Methods and Data Needs (pp. 130–138). Washington, D.C.: U. S. Bureau of the Census.

19. Homelessness in France 585
Burt, M. R. (1992). Practical Methods for Counting Homeless People. Washington, D.C.: Interagency
Council for the Homeless and Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Burt, M. R., Aron, L. Y., Douglas, T., Valente, J., Lee, E., Iwen, B. (1999). Homelessness: Programs
and the people they serve. Findings of the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers
and Clients. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
Burt, M. R., Aron, L. Y., Lee, E. (2001). Helping America’s Homeless: Emergency Shelter or
Affordable Housing? Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
Burt, M. R., Cohen, B. E. (1989a). America’s Homeless: Numbers, characteristics, and programs
that serve them. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
Burt, M. R., Cohen, B. E. (1989b). Differences among homeless single women, women with children,
and single men. Social problems, 36(5), 508–524.
Chauvin, P. (2002). The aggravation of health inequalities in Europe demands new responses. In P.
Chauvin and thedr Europromed Working Group (Eds.), Prevention and health promotion for
the excluded and destitute in Europe (pp. 3–10). Amsterdam: IOS-Press.
Concialdi, P. (2003). Les politiques anti-pauvreté ont-elles réussi? [Have anti-poverty policies been
successful?]. Problèmes économiques, 2.833, 1–6.
Conseil National del’Information Statistique (CNIS). (1996). Pour une meilleure connaissance des
sans-abri et de l’exclusion du logement [For a better knowledge of the homeless and victims of
housing exclusion]. Final Report, Paris, March.
De la Rochère, B. (2003). La santé des sans-domicile usagers des services d’aide [The Health of
Homeless Service Users]. Insee-Première, 893, 1–4.
Debras, B., Dorothée, O. (2002), Les sans domicile usagers des services d’aide dans l’agglomération
parisienne [Homeless service users in the Paris conurbation]. Ile-de-France à la page, 214, 1–
4.
Dennis, M. L., Iachan, R. (1993). A multiple frame approach to sampling the homeless and transient
population. Journal of Official Statistics, 9(4), 747–764.
Diez-Roux, A. (1998). On genes, individuals, society and epidemiology. American Journal of Epi-
demiology, 148, 1027–1032.
Firdion, J. M. (2006). Influence des événements de jeunesse et héritage social au sein de la population
des utilisateurs des services d’aide aux sans-domicile [Influence of childhood events and social
inheritance among homeless service users]. Economie et Statistique, 390–391.
Firdion,J.M.,Marpsat,M.,Bozon,M.(1995).Isitlegitimatetocarryoutsurveysonthehomeless?An
ethical and scientific question. Revue Française des Affaires Sociales, 2–3, 29–51 (translation
available at: http://www.cuhp.org/admin/EditDocStore/JMF Ethics.PDF).
FNARS. (1997). Paroles de rue: l’espoir de nos concitoyens [Words from the street: the hope of our
fellow citizens]. Les Cahiers de la Fnars, 1, 2–8.
Koegel, P., Melamid, E., Burnam, A. (1995). Childhood risk factors for homelessness among home-
less adults. American Journal of Public Health, 85(12), 1642–1649.
Kofler, A. (1999). Living in the streets of Vienna: The methodology of the 1993 ICCR study. In D.
Avramov (Ed.), Coping with homelessness: Issues to be tackled and best practices in Europe
(pp. 200–220). London: Ashgate Publishing.
Korenman, S., Miller, J. E. (1997). Effects of long-term poverty on physical health of children in the
national longitudinal survey of youth. In G. Duncan J. Brooks-Gunn (Eds.), Consequences
of growing up poor, ch. 5 (pp. 70–99). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Kovess, V. (2002). The homeless mentally ill. In The changing contexts of psychiatry (pp. 221–240).
London: John Wiley Sons.
Kovess, V., Mangin-Lazarus, C. (1999). The prevalence of psychiatric disorders and use of care
by homeless people in Paris. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 34(11), 580–
587.
Lecomte, T., Mizrahi, An., Mizrahi, Ar. (2000). Santé et recours au soin des personnes sans-abri à
Paris [Health status and access to treatment among homeless people in Paris]. In M. Marpsat
J.-M. Firdion (Eds.), La rue et le foyer. Une recherche sur les sans-domicile et les mal-logés
dans les années 90, ch. 10 (pp. 323–343). Paris: INED.
Lovell, A. M. (1992). Classification and its risks: How psychiatric status contributes to homeless policy.
New England Public Policy, 8(1), 247–263.

20. 586 Firdion and Marpsat
Marpsat, M., Firdion, J.-M. (Ed.) (2000). La rue et le foyer. Une recherche sur les sans-domicile
et les mal-logés dans les années 90 [Street and shelter. A French research programme on the
homeless and poorly housed in the 1990 s]. Paris: PUF.
Marpsat, M., Firdion, J.-M. (1996). Becoming homeless: Who is at risk. Population et Sociétés, 313,
English version.
Marpsat, M., Firdion, J.-M. (1998). The homeless in Paris: A representative sample survey of users
of services for the homeless. In D. Avramov (Ed.), Coping with homelessness: Issues to be
tackled and best practices in Europe (pp. 221–251). Ashgate Publishing.
Marpsat, M., Firdion, J.-M., (2001). Les ressources des jeunes sans domicile et en situation précaire
[The resources of homeless and vulnerable young people]. Recherches et prévisions, 65, 91–
112.
Marpsat, M. (2000). An advantage with limits: The lower risk for women of becoming homeless.
Population: An English selection, 12, 247–292.
Marpsat, M., Firdion, J.-M., Meron, M. (2000). The difficult past of homeless young people. Popu-
lation et Sociétés, 363, English version.
Marpsat, M., Quaglia, M., Razafindratsima, N. (2005). Les personnes sans domicile rencontrées par
les services itinérants, [Study of homeless people not using accommodation and food programs,
but contacted by other outreach programs] report for the National Observatory of Poverty and
Social Exclusion (ONPES), available online at: http://www.social.gouv.fr/htm/pointsur/onpes/
marpsat.pdf.
Moulin, J. J., Dauphinot, V., Dupré, C., Sass, C., Labbe, E., Gerbaud, L., Guéguen, R., (2005).
Inégalités de santé et comportements: Comparaison d’une population de 704 128 personnes en
situation précaire à une population de 516 607 personnes non précaires, France, 1995–2002.
Bulletin Epidémiologique Hebdomadaire, n◦
43, 213–215.
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). (1993). Prevalence and treatment of drug use and correlated
problems in the homeless and transient population: 1991. Dennis, M. L., Iachan, R., Thornburry,
J. P., Bray, R. M., Packer, L. E., Bieler, G. S. Final Report under Nida contract n◦
271-89-8340,
Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area Drug Study. Rockville, MD: NIDA.
Paugam, S. (1996). Poverty and social disqualification. A comparative analysis of cumulative social
disadvantage in Europe. Journal of European Social Policy, 6(4), 287–303.
Shaw, M., Dorling, D., Davey-Smith, G. (2001). Poverty, Social Exclusion, and Minorities. In M.
Marmot R. Wilkinson (Eds.), Social Determinants of Health (pp. 211–239). Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.
Shlay, A. B., Rossi, P. H. (1992). Social science research and contemporary studies on homelessness.
Annual Review of Sociology, 18, 129–160.
Sosin, M., Piliavin, J., Westerfelt, H. (1990). Toward a Longitudinal Analysis of Homelessness.
Journal of Social Issues, 46(4), 157–174.
Soulié, C. (2000). Le dualisme du réseau d’hébergement pour personnes sans abri à Paris [The dualistic
network of accommodation for homeless people in Paris]. In M. Marpsat J.-M. Firdion (Eds.),
La rue et le foyer. Une recherche sur les sans-domicile et les mal-logés dans les années 90. ch.
7 (pp. 211–253). Paris: INED.
Toro, P. A., Wolfe, S. M., Bellavia, C. W., Thomas, D. M., Rowland, L. L., Daeschler, C. V.,
McCaskill, P. A. (1999). Obtaining representative samples of homeless persons: A two-city
study. Journal of Community Psychology, 27(2), 157–177.
Vázquez, C., Muñoz, M., Sanz, J. (1997). Lifetime and 12-Month prevalence of DSM-III-R mental
disorders among the homeless in Madrid: A European study using the CIDI. Acta Psychiatrica
Scandinavica, 95, 523–530.
Wright, J. D., Rubin, B. A. (1998). Les sans-domicile aux Etats-Unis, leçons tirées de quinze années
de recherche [Homeless in America: What we have learnt from fifteen years of research].
Sociétés Contemporaines, 30, 35–66.
JEAN-MARIE FIRDION is a researcher at the French National Institute for De-
mographic Studies (INED) and in charge of a research program on Vulnerable
Populations and Marginal Housing. He worked with the ACSF team (Analysis of

21. Homelessness in France 587
Sexual Behavior in France) and the ENVEFF team (Violence against Women in
France) on methodological issues in data collection, sensitive questions and the
accuracy of survey results. He has also contributed to the National Council for Sta-
tistical Information (CNIS) Working Group on Homelessness and Exclusion from
Housing. He has collaborated with Maryse Marpsat on the French surveys about
homeless adults, and homeless youths, and on the INSEE survey on homelessness
conducted in 2001.
MARYSE MARPSAT is a member of the French National Institute of Statistics
and Economic Studies (INSEE). She is a researcher at the National Center of
Scientific Research and the French National Institute for Demographic Studies
(INED), where she has been in charge of the research program on the issue of
homelessness. This program-involved-surveys based on representative samples as
well as qualitative research. It included two representative surveys, one on the
living conditions and biographies of homeless adults in Paris and the other on
homeless youth in Paris and its suburbs. She helped write the National Statistical
Council (CNIS) report on homelessness in 1996. She is also a member of the group
working on the national survey on homelessness conducted by INSEE in 2001. Her
other fields of expertise include segregation and the influence of neighborhood.