Sociology 498: Homelessness

Comparing Rossi's Chicago results with other homeless surveys

As low as the Chicago homeless income was, it was slightly better than what Martha Burt and Barbara Cohen found in their national survey of urban homelessness a short time later. But the similarity of these results gives us confidence in their accuracy.

When Burt repeated a similar study a decade later, central city homeless incomes had increased by 40%, even after adjusting for inflation. The increase between 1987 and 1996 in average income for homeless suggests that homelessness has spread to a broader spectrum of the population over the decade.

The 1996 study also included the suburban and rural homeless whose incomes are somewhat higher than the central city homeless. Consequently, the total national homeless income average is somewhat higher than for the just the central city homeless.

This is a similar conclusion to what we observe for median incomes.