The Therapeutic Incarceration of Homeless Families

We discovered from a sample of 340 homeless families that services designed to aid them emerged from two, often conflicting, scrambles for resources. Social service providers parlayed public sentiment toward homelessness into service-intensive programs. The homeless took advantage of such programs, not necessarily for the services, but as a way to more quickly get subsidized housing. The result was an unintentional conflict of interest and failed policy. The homeless remained in the program longer than assumed because of a shortage of subsidized housing and because the regimented services ultimately undermined what fragile social networks they had previously devised to survive.