User:Gianb21/Homelessness in New York: Difference between revisions

Chronic homelessness is an issue that has been in New York City since the late 20th century, together with changes in housing policy, deinstitutionalization, and decreasing access to affordable housing. Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, researchers and policymakers saw that many citizens and families did not experience homelessness only as once in a lifetime occurrence but instead they experienced repetition or long periods of staying in shelters. Early research done by Shinn et al. (1998) went into depth about how structural factors such as limited housing availability, low income, and prior shelter use made it more likely that families would experience housing instability repeatedly after entering the shelter system. As a result of patterns the policy of homelessness began to create a difference between chronic homelessness from short-term homelessness in an attempt to understand long-term shelter reliance better.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development later formalized the differentiation of the two by defining chronic homelessness as homeless individuals that lasts at least one year or that involves repeated episodes over several years, that is often combined with a disability. This definition shows the growing recognition that homelessness can be a cycle and not just a temporary problem, especially in large urban shelter systems like the ones in NYC

Housing Affordability is how difficult or easy it is for individuals to pay for ren, housing, or mortgage without placing too much pressure with the individual’s overall budget.

A fascinating long-term study tracked more than 160,000 people who entered shelter system, run by the NYC Department of homelessness Services(DHS) between 1990-2002. Researchers followed these individuals up until 2008 to understand what happened to them overtime, and the findings are surprising. People who exited these shelters with stable housing had less mortality rates than those who exited without support on stable housing. In other words, stable housing isn’t just about comfort, but about live-saving. Interestingly, the data suggests that staying in the shelter system can reduce the chances of mortality. However, it is not always a protective factor because those who stay in shelter systems also have a high mortality rate due to bad health long-term homelessness imposed.

Mortality rates differ between single adult homeless and adults who are homeless with families. It suggests that Family plays a major role in survival outcomes. Overall, housing stability impacts health.^[1]