Best practices for emergency shelters that serve male populations

ABSTRACT

Homeless men represent the majority of homeless people. While federal funding priorities have shifted to permanent housing solutions, quality emergency shelters are vital in communities to help these men. To determine the best practices in emergency shelter delivery to homeless men based on top agency representatives’ opinions. Leaders from 21 emergency shelters that serve single men throughout the U.S.A. were interviewed about their facilities, their opinions on the best practices of emergency shelters, and barriers that single men face in exiting homelessness. The main goal of emergency shelters is to offer a welcoming environment. Emergency shelters try to offer a variety of services on-site, but find it difficult to offer medical and dental services at facilities with smaller budgets. Access to beds, showers, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, case management, and access to medical services are seen as vital to the success of the emergency shelter. These emergency shelters have many services in place to help the single male population. The most important services are ones that address the basic needs of human beings first: food, showers, beds, medical services, and storage. Mental health and breaking substance dependency are also priorities.

KEYWORDS:

• Homelessness
• homeless men
• emergency shelter
• best practices
• service delivery

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank all of the staff persons from the emergency shelters we surveyed for their time and insights.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Rameika Newman is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida. Her previous research has examined homelessness, health, education, and popular culture. Her current research focuses on how sexual socialization intersects with popular culture and what affect this has on the sexual health of young adults.

Amy Donley is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida and the Director of the UCF Institute for Social and Behavioral Sciences (ISBS). She is an applied sociologist whose research primarily focuses on social inequalities, specifically food insecurity, urban poverty, and homelessness. Her current research examines the experiences of homelessness among college students.