Homeless Alcoholic Women on Skid Row

Abstract

Studies of homeless alcoholic women remain rare. Women on Skid Row in New York City were sought out at the Women's Shelter for a study of homeless women alcoholics. The findings in this study of 31 homeless alcoholic women tend to confirm an earlier study by Garrett and Bahr in most respects. A major difference relates to the population's lack of homogeneity. A life-long pattern of marginality does not exist for most of the women. All judged to be alcoholic, some lived with their families, husbands, or a male partner prior to coming to the shelter. Almost a third lived alone. Sometimes the death of someone close or other crisis precipitated homelessness. In many instances there was no apparent crisis. For a substantial group of these women there did seem to be a long-standing pattern of instability and transient living in the two years preceding their move to the shelter. Public resources invested in shelter care are much needed either for individuals whose limited resources run out or where a crisis results in the loss of safe, adequate shelter.

Women, Homelessness, And Substance Abuse: Moving Beyond the Stereotypes

“…Many of the findings in our study are similar to those previously reported in the few studies that have specifically focused on homeless women with substance abuse problems (Anderson, 1987;Corrigan & Anderson, 1984;Fischer & Breakey, 1987;Garrett & Bahr, 1973;. As compared to these studies, our sample of women had a similar level of education, ethnic composition, marital status, number of children, and medical problems.…”

“…Between 12% and 35% of the women in these studies reported past episodes of victimization, and approximately half had been arrested as adults. In addition, these studies found drug abuse rates be-tween 26 % and 50 % , and rates of mental illness or psychiatric impairment between 52% and 65% (Anderson, 1987;Corrigan & Anderson, 1984;Fischer & Breakey, 1987; Garrett & Bahr, 1973;Wright, Knight, Weber-Burdin, & Lam, 1987).…”

“…Unfortunately, these studies have tended to examine only a few characteristics of these women , utilized very small samples (Anderson, 1987), typically sampled from a single site (Corrigan & Anderson, 1984), or do not reflect contemporary samples of homeless women (Garrett & Bahr, 1973). As a result of these limitations, past research has largely been unable to examine the heterogeneity of homeless women with substance abuse problems.…”

“…Compared to homeless women with children, those without children have been found to be older, more educated, homeless for a longer period of time, and more likely to suffer from mental illness (Buckner, Bassuk, & Zima, 1993;Burt & Cohen, 1989;Johnson & Kreuger, 1989;. Finally, Corrigan and Anderson ( 1984) identified two groups of homeless, substance-abusing women: one group marked by long-standing patterns of instability and transience, and the other characterized by relatively stable lives prior to the occurrence of some major crisis or stressor. As can be seen, there are several different ways to examine the heterogeneity of the homeless population.…”

Toward cost-effective initial care for substance-abusing homeless

“…In the first nationwide study completed in a decade, 744,000 homeless persons were found at a single point in time in 2005, and far more persons experience homelessness in the course of a year (Research reports on homelessness: Homelessness counts, 2007). In addition to systemic factors (e.g., low-cost housing availability) and individual factors (e.g., severe mental illness), substance abuse augments the risk for both homelessness (Corrigan & Anderson, 1984;Koegel, Burnam, & Farr, 1988;Rosenheck et al, 1989) and major health problems (Martens, 2001;Plumb, 1997;Smereck & Hockman, 1998).…”