“They give you back that dignity”: understanding the intangible resources that make a transitional house a home for homeless families

ABSTRACT

Approximately 33% of the homeless population in 2017 were families with children. Researchers have argued for interventions and services to employ an ecological perspective to mitigate some of the unintentional harm inherent in existing programs designed to serve homeless families. This paper utilized a case study of a transitional housing program to (1) determine how well the program met recommendations informed by the ecological perspective and (2) explore underlying themes across recommendations. Past and current residents of a transitional housing program participated in semi-structured interviews as part of a program evaluation. Interviews were deductively and inductively coded to meet aims 1 and 2, respectively. Residents identified several aspects of the program that met the ecological perspective recommendations including culturally-responsive services, trauma-based services, and social and community connections. Major underlying themes spanning across recommendations included interpersonal resources (caring, sense of belonging), empowerment resources (advocacy, family preservation), impact on family (family life, positive youth development), and communication. This case study, through the analysis of residents’ perspectives, highlights the important role of transitional housing programs in providing a supportive, empathetic, empowering, and home-like environment that gives residents “back that dignity” so they are emotionally and physically prepared to successfully transition to permanent housing.

KEYWORDS:

• Homelessness
• transitional housing
• families

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sasha A. Fleary, PhD, is the founder and director of the Child Health Equity Research Lab and Evans Family Assistant Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development. She is a paediatric psychologist with expertise in adolescent development, child and adolescent psychology, preventive health, and health disparities. Her research focuses on empowering parents, adolescents, and children to engage in preventive health behaviours through interventions, programming, and outreach responsive to the risk and protective factors for health disparities in underserved groups.

Patrece Joseph is pursuing her PhD in Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University, where she also received her Master’s degree. Patrece received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Bates College. Her research interests include health literacy, neighbourhoods as contexts for positive health development, and program development and evaluation.

Emily Zhang received her Master’s in Clinical Developmental Health and Psychology and Bachelor’s in Community Health and Child Development from Tufts University. Her areas of interest include culturally-sensitive and community-based research with children and families regarding mental health prevention, education, and interventions. Currently, she is a research coordinator for the Developmental Risk and Cultural Resilience Program within the Department of Newborn Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Catherine Quirion is currently completing her Master’s Degree in Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University. She received her Bachelor’s in Behavioral Neuroscience from Colgate University. Her areas of interest include health and mental health policy for children and families as well as increasing the access and utilization of health resources for underserved families.

ORCID

Sasha A. Fleary http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9237-2407

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Tisch College of Civic Life, Tufts University, Medford MA.