two interventions are possible. One could try to bolster individuals' relationships
with families and friends, but a more direct (and arguably more therapeutic) strat-
egy might simply be to provide the housing and other resources that might other-
wise come from family and friends.
focuses on the perspectives and demands of clients, work options, and supported
housing [will] be effective in helping most people overcome homelessness"
(p. 440). Supports, choices, and control, Carling argued, are critical in determining
whether people remain in housing. Tanzman's (1993) review found that consumers
consistently wanted to live in their own apartments as opposed to living with family,
or group residences, single room occupancy hotels (SRO), or hospitals. Srebnik,
Livingston, Gordon, and King (1995) found that choice in housing was related to
both satisfaction and residential stability for people in supported housing programs.
with mental illness and often substance abuse directly from the streets or shelters
into private apartments of their choice, with supportive services under consumer
control. Participants had higher residential stability than a nonequivalent compari-
son group of 1,600 formerly homeless individuals with severe mental illnesses
housed in the usual system of graduated residential treatment (transitional housing,
community residences, and supervised SRO hotels), even though moves within the
treatment system were not counted against the stability outcome: 88% of the pro-
gram's clients and 47% of the comparison group were still housed at the end of
5 years. Similar short-term findings emerged in a subsequent, smaller study using
an experimental design (Tsemberis, Moran, Shinn, Asmussen, & Shern, in press).
In this case, secure subsidized housing was attained through direct payments to
landlords and negotiated "money management" arrangements with participating
tenants.
(GA) benefits virtually guarantees that recipients will have worst-case housing
needs. SSI is a means-tested program for disabled, blind, and elderly people with
insufficient work histories to qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance, for
which basic (nonclinical) eligibility is established through a history of payroll
deductions. SSI is thus a welfare program, and in 1990, SSI checks represented
only 23% of median income, a figure that is doubtless lower now. McCabe et al.
(1993) compared SSI benefit levels to the fair-market rent in each county or stan-
dard metropolitan statistical area in the United States. On average, renting an