Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Project

Degree Name

Master of Social Work

Department

School of Social Work

First Reader/Committee Chair

Morris, Teresa

Abstract

This research project aimed to determine the effectiveness of available prevention services for individuals and families at risk of experiencing homelessness in a region of Southern California. Homelessness is a prevalent social problem for society and the social problem has been growing significantly. The study adopted an exploratory and qualitative research design by interviewing social services professionals working in the arena of homelessness. The Snowball Sampling method was used to recruit social services professionals after interviewing a select few individuals first. Ten interviews of social services professionals were completed via a Zoom setting.

Data analysis revealed the following ten open codes: accessibility to preventative services, limited preventative services, inefficiency issues of the preventative services, housing affordability, housing scarcity, unfamiliarity of available preventative services, inequitable access to preventative services between individuals and groups, collaboration between service providers and intersectionality affecting the population’s ability maintain and obtain housing. These open codes were utilized to develop axial codes, which explored the relationships between the open codes. The four axial codes that were developed were the following: promoting collaboration, promoting awareness, encouraging strategic approaches, and understanding ongoing development in the solution for effectiveness prevention services. The relationship that was observed through the development of the axial codes were potential solutions to the developed open codes. Lastly, the axial codes were utilized to develop a selective code, which emphasized that the main issue in the effectiveness of prevention services is that the homeless population is actively experiencing a multitude of intersecting issues. These intersecting issues resulted in limited implemented methods of strategic approaches to the development of a solution for effective homelessness prevention.

The findings of this research paper implies that social workers can assist the homeless population by advocating for policy and legislation changes to assist in shifting the public opinion of the homelessness from a stigma to an empathetic and humanistic approach. The findings also implies that social workers could assist the individuals and families that are at risk or actively experiencing homelessness by promoting personal and professional support networks for streamline access to prevention services.

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