“I’m not homeless, I’m houseless”: identifying as homeless and associations with service utilization among Los Angeles homeless young people

ABSTRACT

Little is known about homeless young people’s identification of being homeless and how that identity may or may not be associated with service utilization. This study of 444 homeless young people attending Los Angeles area drop-in centers explores the associations of demographic characteristics, homelessness characteristics, negative lifetime experiences, mental health symptoms, technology use, and past month service utilization with identifying as homeless. Fifty-two percent of the sample identified as being homeless. Being Black, a current traveler, and history of injection drug use were all significantly associated with a decreased likelihood in identifying as homeless. However, having fair/poor health, accessing shelter services, and reporting one’s own substance use as a reason for homelessness were all significantly associated with identifying as homeless. There are important service implications for reaching young people who are in need of services but may not identify with the target population label of homeless.

KEYWORDS:

• Homeless young people
• identity
• service utilization
• shelters
• houseless

Acknowledgments

Additionally, the authors wish to thank the amazing interviewers who helped to collect these data (Ali Arastu, Adam Carranza, David Dent, Shannon Dunlap, Diana Ray Letourneau, Caroline Lim, and Brian Mahanay), and the wonderful partnering agencies and participants without whom this work would not have been possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Hailey Winetrobe is the project manager on the NIDA-funded Transitions to Housing study in the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. Her research interests include homelessness, HIV risk and preventive behaviors, and social networks. Hailey earned her Master’s in Public Health from the University of California Los Angeles and is a Certified Health Education Specialist.

Harmony Rhoades, PhD, holds an M.S. in Epidemiology and a PhD in Sociology from UCLA, and is a Research Assistant Professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. Her research focuses on understanding behavioral health and social integration outcomes and the impact of the built environment and service utilization among vulnerable populations, including socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, persons experiencing homelessness, sexual and gender minority populations, those living with HIV/AIDS, and those with serious mental illness.

Eric Rice, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. He is an expert in social network theory and analysis, and the application of social network methods to HIV prevention research. He is committed to community-based participatory research, and has worked closely with many community-based organizations on issues of HIV prevention for homeless youth and impoverished families. He has served as an external reviewer for Los Angeles County's Office of AIDS Programs and Policy and has helmed multiple large-scale research projects with homeless youth and high-risk adolescents.

Norweeta Milburn, PhD, is a Professor-in-Residence in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA Semel Institute Nathanson Family Resilience Center in the Division of Population Behavioral Health. She received her PhD in Community Psychology from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). Her research interests include homelessness, substance abuse, mental health, and family based behavioral interventions for high-risk adolescents (e.g., homeless, juvenile-justice involved, etc.).

Robin Petering, MSW is a PhD candidate in the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work located in Los Angeles. She is currently a co-Primary Investigator on a multi-city study assessing the health risks and resiliency of young people who are homeless or unstably housed. She has recently been funded with a National Institute of Health NRSA F31 fellowship that will support her continued research on gang involved homeless youth (F31-MH- 108446-01A1).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health [R01MH093336], 2011–2013.