Individuals who experience homelessness are exposed to stressors that have the potential to precipitate mental and physical health complications that can present serious threats to multiple areas of these individuals' lives. Although the path to becoming and remaining homeless is different for every individual, there may be some commonality specific to homelessness that makes certain individuals who experience homelessness more vulnerable than other individuals to the expression and potentially devastating course of psychopathology. Guided by the diathesis-stress model, the intent of this study is to explore the question, following a first hospitalization for mental illness ("schizophrenia spectrum disorder" or "other diagnosis"), what are the associations of homelessness with psychiatric symptom severity and how do risk factors of family history of mental illness, low intelligence, housing independence, hopelessness, and lack of social support interact with homelessness? To answer this question, a secondary analysis was performed on data from the Suffolk County Mental Health Project, a longitudinal study that sought to investigate the course of schizophrenia in an epidemiologic sample of first-admission patients. A sub-sample of 548 cases taken from the parent study were further subdivided into two cohorts; individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorder and those diagnosed with non-schizophrenia mental illness. A multilevel analysis was conducted for four different outcome variables, measuring psychotic, disorganized, and depressive symptoms as well as global functioning, in order to determine whether or not there is a significant association between homelessness and the severity of psychiatric symptomatology. Through the continued use of multilevel analytic models and interaction plots, significant confounding variables were examined to determine whether or not they facilitated interactions with homelessness. Homelessness was found to produce a small, but significant effect, for both cohorts across all four outcome variables. Additionally, applied to different outcome variables, the five confounding variables were also found to have small-to-medium-sized, significant interactions with homelessness. The results of this study provide additional statistical support to other studies looking at similar populations.

Homeless youth are typically defined as a group of adolescents and young adults (ages 12-24) who do not have stable dwellings, but instead live on the streets, in shelters or abandoned buildings, or in other unstable situations (e.g., doubling up with friends). Given the myriad of hardships, stressors, and marginalization faced by youth as they navigate life on the streets, it is encouraging that researchers have begun examining well-being among youth experiencing homelessness. However, the few studies examining well-being among homeless youth have produced inconsistent results. Furthermore, little is known about the components of well-being that are both relevant to and valued by homeless youth, as well as which factors predict differences in well-being among youth. This study examined psychological well-being and its associations with demographic characteristics (race, gender, and sexual orientation), intrapersonal factors (mental health, optimism, and self-esteem), and social-contextual factors (social support, sense of community, and empowerment) among 100 homeless youth utilizing services in Portland, Oregon. Quantitative results indicated that the intrapersonal and social-contextual variables were all significantly associated with psychological well-being among homeless youth at the bivariate level. However, in a full hierarchical regression model containing all study variables, only self-esteem and psychological distress were significant predictors of well-being. Thematic analysis of qualitative data revealed 11 categories of factors that impact youth's well-being, including Self Care, Social Support, and Personal Outlook. Collectively, findings have practical implications for program development at homeless youth service centers while also informing future research in this area.

This study supported the hypothesis that short-term shelter programs can help reduce depression in homeless parents.

The purpose of this project was to find out whether or not there were specific factors that made homeless people depressed. Finding depression factors will help to establish strategies and programs that would prevent homeless people from being depressed. The current study tested the hypothesis that basic needs and education are needed to help in factoring depression.