Unique health care utilization patterns in a homeless population in Ghent

Background: Existing studies concerning the health care use of homeless people describe higher utilisation rates for hospital-based care and emergency care, and lower rates for primary care by homeless people compared to the general population. Homeless people are importantly hindered and/or steered in their health care use by barriers directly related to the organisation of care. Our goal is to describe the accessibility of primary health care services, secondary care and emergency care for homeless people living in an area with a universal primary health care system and active guidance towards this unique system. Methods: Observational, cross-sectional study design. Data from the Belgian National health survey were merged with comparable data collected by means of a face-to-face interview from homeless people in Ghent. 122 homeless people who made use of homeless centres and shelters in Ghent were interviewed using a reduced version of the Belgian National Health survey over a period of 5 months. 2-dimensional crosstabs were built in order to study the bivariate relationship between health care use (primary health care, secondary and emergency care) and being homeless. To determine the independent association, a logistic model was constructed adjusting for age and sex. Results and Discussion: Homeless people have a higher likelihood to consult a GP than the non-homeless people in Ghent, even after adjusting for age and sex. The same trend is demonstrated for secondary and emergency care. Conclusions: Homeless people in Ghent do find the way to primary health care and make use of it. It seems that the universal primary health care system in Ghent with an active guidance by social workers contributes to easier GP access

Dying without Dignity: Homeless Deaths in Los Angeles County: 2000 - 2007

This report is an investigation into 2,815 homeless deaths in Los Angeles County between January, 2000 and May, 2007, based on statistics provided by the Los Angeles County Coroner's office. When a homeless person dies they do not often get the same sense of dying with dignity as a housed person. December 21st has been commemorated as the National Homeless Persons' Memorial Day by the National Coalition for the Homeless in partnership with the National Health Care for the Homeless Council for communities around the nation to commemorate the lives of homeless people that passed away.Local advocates and service providers celebrate the lives of thousands of homeless people in hundreds of cities around the nation with candlelight vigils, a reading of names, and other acts to remember the lives of those lost while living on the streets of our nation.This report is an investigation into homeless deaths in Los Angeles County between January, 2000 and May, 2007, based on statistics from the Los Angeles County Coroner's office. It is our hope that the homeless people who make up the statistics in this report did not die in vain and that policy makers move to implement the recommendations of this report in an effort to provide the dignity they did not find while living on the streets of our community. Equally important, to implement these strategies to help prevent the untimely deaths of homeless people in the future

Web of Failure: The Relationship Between Foster Care and Homelessness

The purpose of this project is to examine the connection between foster care and homelessness and to determine whether or not there is an over-representation of people with a foster care history in the homeless population. In order to examine this issue, the project used four sources of information: (1) existing research on the connection between foster care and homelessness; (2) data collected from organizations which serve homeless people and which gather information on their clients' foster care history; (3) data obtained directly from a sample of homeless people; and (4) case studies of people who are or were homeless and who have a foster care history

Street health: Practitioner service provision for Maori homeless people in Auckland

Drawing insights from interviews with Maori homeless people, health professionals, and relevant local and international literatures, this chapter focuses on the provision of medical care to homeless people. In particular, we propose that health services orientate to accommodate the worldviews and circumstances of Maori homeless people. Below we consider colonialism and societal developments that have led to homelessness among Maori today. We then present a case study of ‘Grant’, which was compiled from common aspects of various Maori homeless people who access health services at the Auckland City Mission (ACM); an organisation with a long history of catering to the needs and hopes of dispossessed groups, providing food, clothing, advocacy, social and health services. The relational orientation of healthcare at the ACM is discussed, and leads to an exploration of ‘judgement-free service space’ for meeting client needs (cf., Trussell & Mair, 2010). Lastly, we focus on how health professionals can respond to the multiple healthcare needs of Maori homeless people, in partnership with social services

Homeless lives in New Zealand: The case of central Auckland

Homelessness is a pressing and increasingly visible concern in New Zealand. Many people sleeping rough are male and of Maori or Pacific descent. This research focuses on understanding the nature of resilience through the lived experiences of homeless people. To gain insights into cultures of homelessness, a qualitative case study research design was used to engage six homeless people who took part in a series of interviews and photoproduction exercises. Participants are of Maori, Pacific Island, and Pakeha ethnic backgrounds. It therefore may become important to document how homeless people see themselves in relation to their communities of origin and the wider public

The Homeless: Who and How Many?

Note: The PDF of this article includes web supplements which did not appear in the original print version of the article.Across the nation in both rural and urban areas, public and private agencies work to provide services for homeless people. One of the biggest challenges is collecting data about homeless individuals: how many people are homeless, who they are, what services they need most, and how long they have been homeless. This article looks at reports from 2012, 2013, and 2014 on estimates of homelessness in the U.S. and Alaska, the subpopulations of homeless individuals, and the various definitions of homelessness.[Introduction] / Definitions of Homelessness / Who Counts the Homeless? / How Data are Reported / How Many People are Homeless? / The Homeless in Prisons and Jails / HUD Counts / Who Are the Homeless? / PIT Counts in Alaska / Project Homeless Connect in Alaska / Homeless Veterans / Homeless Students-K-12 / Homeless Unaccompanied Youth / Homeless Households in Anchorage / Conclusion / SIDEBARS / Definitions of Homelessness / Homelessness References / WEB SUPPLEMENTS / The Homeless: Who and How Many? - Web Supplement (Tables) / Resources on Homelessness — Web SupplementYe

Homeless population

The aim was to derive and analyze a model for numbers of homeless and non-homeless people in a borough, in particular to see how these figures might be affected by different policies regarding housing various categories of people. Most attention was focused on steady populations although the stability of these and possible timescales of dynamic problems were also discussed. The main outcome of this brief study is the identification of the key role played by the constant k_1 - the constant which fixes the speed at which the homeless are rehoused in permanent council property. Reducing this constant, i.e. making the system "fairer" with less priority to accommodating homeless families, appears to have little effect on the sizes of other categories on the waiting list but there is a marked increase in the number of households in temporary accommodation. The model, indicated by the size of its longest time-scale, should be modified to allow for births etc. It could be varied by allowing people to remove themselves from the register or by allowing the rates at which registered and unregistered people become homeless to differ, but these modifications are unlikely to substantially change the main result. The inclusion of movement from the homeless to the general population would have the effect of limiting the numbers in temporary accommodation. However, it is thought this effect is very small so a great reduction in k_1 would be needed for this flow to become significant

Comparing White and African American Homeless Youth in San Francisco: Research Findings and Policy Implications

Homeless youth are not a homogenous group. The needs of this population vary based on geographic location, demographic characteristics, and homelessness history. Some research indicates that racial and ethnic minorities are over-represented among homeless youth; other studies find that homeless youth generally reflect the racial and ethnic makeup of their local community. While researchers continue to identify the characteristics of homeless youth, it is important to understand the unique needs of all homeless young people. Research from the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine, and the University Of California Berkeley School Of Public Health reveals important differences between white and African American homeless youth living on the streets in San Francisco. These differences may have significant implications for policy and programs to address and prevent youth homelessness in California

"Homeless Networks and Geographic Concentration: Evidence from Osaka City"

Homeless people in Osaka City are geographically concentrated. The purpose of this paper is to examine this geographic concentration by focusing on homeless networks. The data we use contain information on Osaka City.s homeless population by census blocks. The estimated results of a spatial autoregressive model with autoregressive disturbances show that the homeless network is signi.cantly positive across census blocks. Networks exist in a homeless society.

Trends in the size of the nation's homeless population during the 1980s: A surprising result

There are good national estimates of the number of homeless people in shelters in 1984, 1988, and 1990, but only in 1987 is there a reliable estimate of the number of people sleeping in streets. The large increase in the sheltered homeless population between 1984 and 1987-88 could reflect a shift of the homeless from street to shelters rather than a growth in total homelessness. Data from a number of local studies of homeless populations in U.S. cities in the 1980s have made it possible to estimate the ratio of the number of homeless on the street to the number of homeless in shelters and thereby to estimate the size of the national homeless population over this period with some degree of accuracy. Our estimates indicate that the expansion of shelters over the decade did have the effect of reducing the proportion of the homeless living on the street. Still, when we combine the estimated ratios with the estimates of the shelter population in 1984, 1987, 1988, and 1990, we find that homelessness about doubled between 1984 and 1987. We also find that homelessness declined between 1987 and 1990. At its peak, the number of people literally homeless on any given night was less than 400,000. Finally, our results also provide evidence that pure enumerations or censuses of the homeless population lead to undercounts. Both sample censuses and retrospective interview studies provide more complete counts.