ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the different types of studies that have been conducted, who they reach, advances in methodology, and the latest thinking and practice in collecting data to affect policy related to the homeless. The estimates of the numbers of homeless on Chicago’s streets that P. Rossi produced using his new method were much lower than expected; they were only one-half to one-third of the figures generally given by advocates in Chicago. Major research efforts were completed during this period that offered reliable new data on homeless population size and characteristics. In 1987, the Food and Nutrition Service of the US Department of Agriculture contracted with the Urban Institute to conduct a study of homeless users of shelters and soup kitchens in cities with 100,000 or more population. The New York and Philadelphia figures, hovering around three percent of the population, were corroborated from a completely different source – household telephone surveys conducted by Link and his colleagues.
