Community Psychology Commons^™

This study tested for associations between childhood adversity, adult homelessness and contexts of developmental risk in households with children. Data were drawn from the 2010 Washington State Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, representative of the population of Washington State residents. Considering adults in households with children, those who experienced higher levels of childhood adversity were more likely to have experienced homelessness in adulthood. Meanwhile, a 10-factor index of cumulative developmental risk was independently associated with childhood adversity and with adult homelessness. Adult homelessness appears to represent a circumstance through which past childhood adversities are brought forward and associated with contexts …

In recent years, permanent supportive housing PSH has emerged as the preferred intervention for addressing chronic homelessness in the United States. However, almost all prior studies examining the effectiveness of PSH have been conducted at the individual level, with only minimal attempts to empirically test the relationship between PSH and chronic homelessness at the community level. This study uses longitudinal data collected by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD and several other sources to model the relationship between measures of community investment in PSH and rates of chronic homelessness. The results show modest negative associations between increased …