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Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to identify social network methods, even used in a cursory fashion, are valuable tools for nursing research and public health.
Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to identify one common thread of support among all categories of homelessness.
Aims:
- Identify sources of support of those who are in different stages of homelessness in a suburban area.
- Assess acceptability and feasibility of data collection procedures for future investigations of homeless social networks.
Method: This is a pilot descriptive study. The researcher met with homeless participants living in a suburban area of North Florida using a network-styled questionnaire that requested participants to free list the persons and organizations that had provided support in the past 12 months.
Results: Participants (N = 5) fell into four categories: newly homeless, stable homeless, newly housed, and stable housed. Faith-based organizations (FBOs) were reported as the primary source of support for all categories of homelessness with FBOs being utilized more heavily in the first phases of homelessness and increasingly less as a person became stably housed. The same pattern was seen with the new homeless relying more heavily on other homeless with a shift to family support as a person moved up the housing continuum. Of all the categories the newly housed utilized the greatest quantity of supports. This suggests that connections do change as a person moves through the homeless continuum. The questionnaire was well received by all participants. Future research should examine what it at stake in these connections and optimize the healthy ones.