Advocates Make a Difference in Duration of Homelessness and Quality of Life

ABSTRACT

Social support is known to protect against homelessness and improve the wellbeing of people experiencing homelessness, but the role of professional versus informal advocates has not been studied in relation to the duration of homelessness and quality of life. We measured the effect of the presence and quality of formal (professional) and informal (family or friend) advocates on these outcomes. Our team interviewed 67 adults experiencing homelessness at tiny house villages and self-organized encampments in Seattle/King County, Washington in 2018–2019. The duration of homelessness was 19.6 months shorter for those with a high-quality informal advocate, compared to those without, while controlling for race, age, gender, and sexuality. However, this difference did not reach statistical significance at the alpha 0.05 level (p = .069). Additionally, those with high-quality informal advocates had 5.3 times the odds (p = .010) of reporting high quality of life compared to those without. The effect of at least one high-quality, professional advocate was insignificant in our model. Our results suggest social workers and other professional advocates integrate methods that strengthen clients’ informal relationships into their practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Homelessness
• social support
• duration of homelessness
• quality of life

Acknowledgments

Our sincerest thank you to residents and participants of Nickelsville and SHARE for sharing and trusting us with their stories. Thank you to Scott Morrow, Trey Nuzum, and other leaders at SHARE and Nickelsville. We thank Sean Smith for helping design the survey instrument and inspiring us to explore the role of advocates as important social supports. Jessica Mogk offered mentorship and wisdom; her research on the role of legal debt and homelessness also informed our methods. Undergraduate students April (Mingyang) Li, Hannah Turlove, Kleitia Cerekja, Logan Young, Nicki Mostofi, and Phuong Ngyuen volunteered their time to assist with data collection. Special thanks to Kleitia Cerekja for her additional assistance with transcription and qualitative coding. Takuya Curtis offered technical assistance setting up Open Data Kit.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statement

Participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared with members outside of the research team, therefore, data are not publicly available.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice. Access to Stata 14.2/SE was made possible through Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE) Computing and the UW Student Technology Fee.