University of Maryland
Sociology 498: Homelessness: exam questions

Exam Study Questions

  1. Describe four ways that you might go out and count the street homeless population on a given week in a Washington. Evaluate the four methods with regard to their accuracy and feasibility (i.e., cost). Which methods do Rossi and Jencks/Burt/HUD favor? Why?

  2. Describe three types of housing situations that might be counted as homelessness but are not usually included in official statistics. Why should each be considered as homeless -- that is, what is the argument that these people are as homeless as are those in Liebow's shelters?

  3. Explain why there is a difference between the average person who is homeless at any one point in time and the average person among those who have been homeless in the last year.

  4. By the mid to late 1980s, where is the most common location for homeless people to sleep? What are two reasons that the line between being homeless and being domiciled is a "fuzzy" line?

  5. Identify four correlates of shelter use (as compared to staying in the streets) among the homeless. Explain to what extent each correlate might and might not be a cause of shelter use? What are two factors that do not distinguish the sheltered homeless from the street homeless?

  6. How does the income of the homeless compare to the incomes of other poor groups such as those living in Single-Room-Occupancy hotels or the census poor? How does the extent and importance of work for the homeless differ from other poor groups?

  7. How are the homeless different from the general population in age? gender? race? marital status? How do they differ from the poor on these factors?

  8. What are two types of evidence that the Chicago homeless have more mental illness than the general population? What are two reasons why this evidence might not show that mental illness is a cause of homelessness?

  9. Discuss two weaknesses in the evidence for the common claim that about a third of the homeless are homeless because they are alcoholic or have other substance abuse problems.

  10. What is the evidence that the homeless are in worse health than the general population? Why might that evidence not prove that poor health causes homelessness? What is the evidence that the homeless are or are not in worse health than other poor groups?

  11. What is the evidence that the homeless are more likely to have a criminal past than the general population? than the poor in general? Give two reasons why a criminal record might cause homelessness.

  12. What are two different types of systematic micro-level evidence that the lack of social ties (or families) causes homelessness?

  13. What are three types of evidence that Rossi provides for his conclusion that housing shortages are a major cause of homelessness? What are two pieses of evidence that Rossi provides for his conclusion that government welfare problems were a source of homelessness in the 1980s?

  14. How did the labor market change in the 1980s that suggests that job shortages are an important cause of homelessness? Why is this now an unconvincing argument?

  15. What are two reasons Liebow gives for not exploring mental illness or substance abuse as a cause of homelessness? What are two examples from his own ethnography that suggest mental illness may be a causal factor? What is Jencks's response to Liebow's reservations?

  16. Discuss two examples Liebow provides that physical disabilities may be a cause of homelessness. Names are not important, but describe the specific disabilities and how they were linked to how these people became homeless.

  17. Describe briefly four of the most pressing day-to-day problems for streetpeople adjusting to homelessness and give some explanations why or empirical evidence that these are actually problems. What are two problems that are not often cited by the homeless as problems as much as we (middle-class) observers might have guessed. Why are these not cited as much by the homeless?

  18. Explain two non-economic reasons why the lack of work is damaging to the homeless. What would be a possible rebuttal to each? Explain two reasons why homelessness is damaging to finding work.

  19. What are two reasons why finding work is not a common route out of homelessness? What might be a counter-argument to each of these reasons?

  20. What two types of family relationships are most likely to be conflictual for the homeless? Which type of family relationship do the homeless describe with the most affection? Provide an example from Liebow of each of these problems.

  21. What are two reasons why their families are not a practical solution for housing the homeless? Provide examples for each from Liebow.

  22. Explain why it is natural for the homeless to assign causality for their homelessness to their situations and why it is equally natural for the nonhomeless to assign causality to the characteristics of the homeless people ( besides the fact that these attributions enable a person to avoid assuming guilt and responsibility for homelessness).

  23. For the homeless, what are two likely sources of comfort beyond the family that actually provide comfort on a regular basis? What is one non-family contact who might be expected to be a source of comfort but usually isn't? Provide an example or evidence of each.

  24. Describe three divisions are most often observed among the homeless. Who resents whom across these divisions?

  25. Describe the typical mutual fears of shelter residents for shelter staff and for shelter neighbors.

  26. What are three different functions of shelter rules according to Liebow?

  27. How did Honig and Filer measure the degree of homelessness across cities? What is the major problem with this measure? How did Martha Burt measure the degree of homelessness across cities? What is the major problem with this measure? In what kinds of cities is this problem likely to be bigger? How can we test whether Honig and Filer's or Burt's measure of homelessness is better?

  28. What is the cross-city evidence that bad housing markets are (or are not) a cause of homelessness? that poverty is (or is not) a cause of homelessness?

  29. What are two types of macro-level evidence that lack of social ties causes higher rates of homelessness? Why does Jencks find the macro-level explanation unconvincing (two facts)?

  30. What is one reason why overall levels of mental illness (whether institutionalized or not) are likely to be lower when homelessnes rose in the 1980s than they were before? one reason why they might have been higher than in the past?

  31. What is the major empirical problem with the de-institutionalization explanation of the rise of homelessness? Explain how Jencks responds to this problem. What is a problem with his evidence?

  32. What is the overall trend since the 1970s in substance abuse? What implication does this have for substance abuse as a macro-level explanation for homelessness? What is the cross-city evidence?

  33. What a) micro and b) macro evidence suggests that crack is or is not a cause of homelessness?

  34. Describe a) one advantage and b) one disadvantage of each of the following policy changes designed to respond to the substance abuse causes of homelessness:

  35. What is the over-time evidence that poverty rates affect homelessness? How does evidence from the late 1980s alter that conclusion? from the 1950s? Why might poverty rates in the 1950s not cause homelessness but poverty rates in the 1980s still cause homelessness?

  36. How have overall marriage rates changed over time that suggests they may have been a cause of rising homelessness? For men, what is the main problem with these marriage trends as an explanation? For women, what other family change besides marriage rates is central?

  37. Families often make the difference for poor adults in whether they become homeless by taking in poor relatives who cannot afford to live on their own. Why, according to Jencks, is this "social ties" story not a very good macro-level explanation of the rise of homelessness in the 1980s? What is the evidence?

  38. What is Rossi's final (housing) explanation for why homelessness rose in Chicago in the 1980s? What does Jencks find about the national trends in a) the supply and b) the cost of cheap, low quality rental housing and how does that support or alter Rossi's story?

  39. According to Jencks what is the major obstacle to increases in the supply of cheap low quality rental housing to the poor? What are three political sources of opposition to more low quality rental housing?

  40. Describe changes over time in the amount and the type of government support for low income housing. Evaluate how good an explanation this is for changes in homelessness.

  41. What is the argument why rent controls create more homelessness? What is the evidence? What are two problems with this evidence?

  42. Describe how two government programs designed to alleviate homelessness that may have actually increased homelessness.

  43. What is the over-time and cross-city evidence that higher welfare levels reduce homelessness? How do different types of government welfare payments (targeted to different populations) predict different levels of homelessness among different types of people [that is, what is the evidence that the type and level of welfare payments can increase or decrease homelessness rates among different types of people] ?

    44. Describe how the following are linked to rates of homelessness by describing how they are (or are not) linked to

    Thus, how does each of the following affect homelessness rates?
  44. the size of the middle-income population,
  45. the size of the lowest-income population,
  46. increased operating costs.

  47. What is the evidence about the changes in income distribution that suggests where the housing shortage came from?

  48. What is the evidence about changes in the available quantities of low-cost housing over time and which of the above explanations is this consistent with? What is the evidence about changes in the available quality of low-cost housing over time and which of the above explanations is this consistent with?

  49. What are two benefits of using universal, not means-tested, programs to solve welfare problems. Give a concrete example that illustrates these benefits.

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    Last updated April 26, 2007
    comments to: Reeve Vanneman. reeve@umd.edu