Permanent Supportive Housing Locations and Formerly Homeless Persons' Perceived Safety

Background and Purpose:

Low perceived safety may lead to adverse health consequences, especially for chronically homeless individuals who are at high risk of victimization. Housing can serve as a form of protection from victimization for homeless individuals. Permanent supportive housing (PSH) has been considered an effective strategy to end chronic homelessness as it has demonstrated positive effects on increasing tenants’ perceived “ontological security” and promoting their perceived health outcomes. However, how formerly homeless individuals’ perceived safety may be influenced by PSH locations, namely the neighborhood environment, remains unclear. Guided by the disorder model, this study aims to understand PSH recipients’ perceived safety and explores whether these perceptions may be contingent upon the neighborhood environment surrounding PSHs.

Methods

This study was conducted at Los Angeles Downtown Skid Row area, where homeless individuals and PSH are concentrated. A modified mixed method explanatory sequential design was conducted with the quantitative component intended to explain qualitative findings. Qualitative data regarding PSH recipients’ perceived safety were first collected from 25 formerly homeless individuals who transitioned into PSH through semi-structured interviews. Content and thematic analysis was used to identify themes related to participants’ perceived safety. Block-based neighborhood observation data was then collected using the neighborhood observational checklist to measure physical and social environment characteristics from blocks adjacent to participants’ PSH buildings (7 single site congregated PSH buildings and 52 blocks). Basic descriptive analysis was conducted to demonstrate neighborhood environment context.

Findings

Overall, participants expressed feeling safer and gaining more control over their lives after being housed. However, through matching each participant’s perceived safety and their PSH locations, perceived safety seemed to be contingent on whether assigned PSH was located within or outside of Skid Row. Participants housed within Skid Row felt safe in housing but not within their neighborhoods whereas participants from PSH outside of Skid Row expressed feeling safe in their housing and neighborhoods. High security measures integrated with PSH and safety concerns within the neighborhood (e.g., illegal substance use activities and potential physical assaults and harassments) also encouraged participants housed within Skid Row to isolate themselves from activities outside of PSH. Further comparisons of observed neighborhood characteristics between PSH within and outside of Skid Row through t-tests and Chi-square tests suggests that neighborhood environment surrounding PSH within Skid Row had more trash, odor, verbal harassments, and homeless individuals compared with neighborhoods outside of Skid Row.

Conclusion and Implication

Based on our study, providing PSH can help promote formerly homeless individuals’ perception regarding safety.  However, PSH locations may be critical in influencing PSH residents’ perceived safety within the community, which may further impact their social activities and health outcomes. Future PSH developments should take neighborhood environment into consideration. Housing homeless individuals in neighborhoods with high concentrations of homelessness and illegal activities or in areas they had experienced homelessness or victimization may not only make them feel unsafe but also hinder their recovery from substance addiction or mental illness. Providing PSH using scattered-site housing may help homeless individuals have more supportive neighborhood options when choosing PSH.