Female-Headed Homeless Families: A Comparative Profile

Homeless families are a rising proportion of the contemporary homeless population. However, no data have heretofore documented a profile of shel-tered homeless families over time. Data collected in St. Louis from 1983 to 1988 indicate that homeless families are likely to be young, minimally educated, female-headed minority families with one or two preschool chil-dren. The emergence of these women and children as the dominant population of homeless families is discussed in the context of the increasing loss of affordable housing in St. Louis, Missouri, and the inability of mothers who receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children to pay market-rate rents. Nationwide, families with children make up the largest-growing segment of the homeless population and the largest group for whom emergency shelter and other services are lacking (Reyes & Waxman, 1987; Whittemore, 1988). Although most areas of the country now recognize the crisis of homeless families, little research on homeless families is available. One exception is Bassuk and colleagues ’ (Bassuk, 1986; Bassuk, Rubin, & Lauriat, 1986) pioneering effort, which delin-eated the characteristics of homeless families in 14 family shelters in Massachusetts. An additional case-controlled study described differ-ences between female-headed homeless and housed families in Boston Author’s Note: The research on which this article is based was sponsored by a gran