Local academics and service agencies partner to research and address homelessness in Philadelphia.

“We’ve learned a lot, especially that one shoe doesn’t fit all,” says clinical psychologist Dr. Jerry Stahler, Associate Professor of Geography & Urban Studies at Temple University. Stahler researches interventions for homeless people who also have problems with substance abuse. He emphasizes that the term “homeless” is not as accurate as the term “residentially unstable.” Chronically homeless people constitute a relatively small portion of people without secure housing. Most of the people counted as homeless “cycle in and out of different housing situations, living with family, friends, and in shelters,” Stahler says. He explains that the multiple reasons for residential instability means that people need a variety of support services tailored to their needs.

Since the early 1990s, Stahler has worked with the Diagnostic and Rehabilitation Center of Philadelphia (DRC). Through the Bridges to the Community program in an African-American neighborhood near Temple, residentially unstable women were paired with volunteer mentors in local churches. Stahler says that these spiritual-based, community connections proved highly successful in preventing relapses.

Going forward, Stahler’s research will continue to focus on factors in the neighborhood that the impact behavior of individuals in recovery. He also serves on the Board of the Institute for Research, Education and Training in Addictions, a regional “science-service initiative” that facilitates dialogue among agencies and researchers involved in substance abuse and housing instability.

University of Pennsylvania Professor of Social Welfare Policy and Penn Medicine Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry, Dr. Dennis Culhane, has collaborated with many organizations including Philadelphia’s Office of Supportive Housing, Project H.O.M.E., and Philadelphia Committee to End Homelessness (PCEH). He says his introduction to homelessness issues began “many years ago [when] I worked as a shelter volunteer at St. Francis Inn in Kensington.”

Culhane’s research, like Stahler’s, also reveals the “dynamic” or “episodic” nature of housing instability. This information promotes better understanding of how shelters are utilized. Culhane’s research also indicates that

• a larger segment of the general population is at risk for housing instability than is typically realized; and
• a coordinated preventive approach could be more cost effective than responding after an emergency has occurred.

Dainette Mintz, Director of the City’s Office of Supportive Housing calls Culhane’s research “very influential and helpful” in “strategically targeting our limited resources.” For example, when academic studies pinpointed neighborhoods that were disproportionately coming to shelters, city programs could then aim rent, mortgage, and utility assistance to those zip codes. Pilot programs are now underway for “prevention and diversion” of homelessness through interventions like case management, housing help, community placements, and job training/counseling.

Mintz is considering the involvement of academic researchers in assessing these pilot programs. By partnering with local researchers agencies will continue to benefit from the insight that the research provides.