The Dynamics of Families Who are Homeless: Implications for Early Childhood Educators

Family homelessness has emerged as a serious global problem (Stronge, 2000). Over the past 25 years in the United States, the makeup of the homeless population has changed significantly. As De Angelis (1994) reports: The landscape of homelessness has changed since the early1980s, when nearly all homeless people were men. Today, families – typically women with two children under age 5 make up 30 percent of the homeless population. (p. 1) Some scholars (e.g., Bassuk, 1991) suggest that families may constitute 40 to 50 percent of the homeless. Thus, the focus of this article is on articulating the various dynamics of families who are homeless, what this means for the early childhood education profession, and what strategies we can employ to effectively support homeless families with young children. The Changing Concepts of Homelessness Various government and private agencies have different concepts of homelessness. The U.S. federal government defines homeless individuals as: those who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; have a primary nighttime residence that is • a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill); • an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or • a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings. (cited in Heflin, 1991, p. 1