Social Policy and Social Science Research on Homelessness

The research reported in this journal issue represents some of the most sophisticated and careful of current social science research on homelessness in the United States. Much of the early research was limited to assessment of the numbers and characteristics of the homeless. More sophisticated studies utilizing longitudinal and ethnographic methods are now available. All of this research is useful for planning purposes—for informing those charged with managing or ameliorating homelessness. However, if research is to inform efforts to end mass homelessness, the focus of current research must be broadened and research questions redefined. Epidemiological studies can indicate only who is likely to lose in the competition to find housing. But the causes of homelessness may ultimately have much more to do with social facts that account for the distribution of housing and other resources than with facts about individual homeless people. Much useful research remains to be done on such things as how images of homelessness are communicated through the mass media, the determinants of attitudes of both ordinary citizens and policy‐making elites toward the poor and homeless, how and why organized advocacy on these issues has succeeded, and how and why it has failed.