This article focuses on the experience of victimization among a representative sample of 141 homeless women interviewed in a single‐adult shelter in New York City. The frequency of victimization experiences, specifically aggressive sexual and physical assault, was high. Twenty‐one women reported being raped, 42 women reported both rape and physical abuse, and 62 women reported physical abuse without sexual abuse. Shelter women reporting frequent experiences were likely to experience high levels of depressive symptoms; psychotic symptoms; and hospitalization for psychiatric, medical, alcohol, and drug problems. These results further indicate that assault experiences cluster in specific ways and are associated with different clinical outcomes. These findings are seen as underscoring the need for service delivery programs to respond to the experience of vicitimization among homeless women and suggest some future research directions.
This article uses a theoretical perspective on stress to review and organize the largely descriptive empirical literature on homeless women. From this perspective, homelessness is considered as a highly stressful circumstance, and the sources and mediators of homelessness are examined. The article suggests that more is known about the risk factors for homelessness among women than about the mediating factors that may lessen the impact of their stressful circumstances.
Measures of economic hardship, coping, self‐esteem, and social support from friends and co‐workers predicted nearly 25% of the variation in financial strain in a sample of 83 single mothers in New York City. Social support appeared to function as a protector in the face of stress, though evidence for the buffer effect was meager. Support from co‐workers and friends rather than family was positively related to well‐being. Self‐esteem strongly affected the well‐being of single mothers, accounting for a unique 5% of the variation in strain. Implications for community psychologists are discussed.
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