Best Practices For Emergency Shelters That Serve Male Populations

Keywords

best practices; emergency shelter; homeless men; Homelessness; service delivery

Abstract

Homeless men represent the majority of homeless people. While federal funding priorities have shifted to permanent housing solutions, quality emergency shelters are vital in communities to help these men. To determine the best practices in emergency shelter delivery to homeless men based on top agency representatives’ opinions. Leaders from 21 emergency shelters that serve single men throughout the U.S.A. were interviewed about their facilities, their opinions on the best practices of emergency shelters, and barriers that single men face in exiting homelessness. The main goal of emergency shelters is to offer a welcoming environment. Emergency shelters try to offer a variety of services on-site, but find it difficult to offer medical and dental services at facilities with smaller budgets. Access to beds, showers, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, case management, and access to medical services are seen as vital to the success of the emergency shelter. These emergency shelters have many services in place to help the single male population. The most important services are ones that address the basic needs of human beings first: food, showers, beds, medical services, and storage. Mental health and breaking substance dependency are also priorities.

Publication Date

7-3-2017

Publication Title

Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless

Volume

26

Issue

2

Number of Pages

97-103

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1080/10530789.2017.1332559

Socpus ID

85019750048 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85019750048

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