Using Positive Psychology to Predict Shelter Use: A Study of Homeless Families in New York City

Background and Purpose: Positive psychological traits like hope, resilience, and self-control that are intuitively associated with success are predictive of justice system recidivism and earnings, and may provide similar insight into the dynamics of shelter spells.  Homeless shelter providers and case managers currently lack tools to make a priori distinctions between short-term and long-term shelter stayers; predictive models including these traits may enable them to target resources to those most likely to remain in shelter the longest, reducing overall shelter utilization and costs. This study is the first to examine the positive psychological traits of homeless families, and uses that data to model subsequent shelter use.

Methods: The study focuses on families applying for shelter through New York City’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS), the nation’s largest municipal shelter provider.  The head of household of approximately 700 families completed a questionnaire consisting of employment, demographic, and housing information and three previously validated scales of psychological capital measuring hope, self-control, and resilience.  Scores on these scales are compared to other baseline characteristics and populations, and matched to administrative data to model subsequent shelter use.  Explanatory and predictive models are developed using standard event history methods, namely Tobit, Accelerated Failure Time, and Cox Proportional Hazard models.

Results: Multivariate regressions modeling duration of shelter spells and likelihood of exiting shelter suggest that these psychological traits are predictive of subsequent homelessness, with resilience being more powerful than other psychological covariates.  In addition, baseline results indicate that homeless families score similarly to the general population on all three scales.  Levels of self-control and resilience increase with age, while multiple prior residences in the last year and having undergone counseling for a mental illness are associated with lower resilience.  All three scales are highly correlated with each other, corroborating prior studies suggesting that higher levels of hope and self-control are associated with improved resilience and better outcomes. 

Conclusions and Implications: These findings have implications for perceptions of homelessness and suggest solutions to address it.  Baseline results suggest that entry into homelessness is not caused by a deficiency of psychological attributes that should help a family remain housed, and may be helpful in re-framing the discourse on precipitating factors of shelter entry.  More significantly for shelter providers, case managers, and policymakers, the predictive validity of psychological characteristics may be a valuable and efficient tool in targeting scarce public resources to long-term shelter stayers most in need of additional resources.  Findings also suggest that inexpensive interventions that have improved earnings and prison recidivism rates through increased resilience may be similarly effective at reducing shelter utilization.