Characteristics, health status and service needs of sheltered homeless families.

To describe the characteristics, health status, needs and utilization of health services of sheltered homelessness families, we performed a population-based, cross-sectional survey of a probability sample of 103 parents and 260 children in the District of Columbia. Data from parents were gathered by a semi-structured interview and from children by standard validated instruments. The parents were: single (72%), women (95%), poorly educated (54% less than high school), unemployed (85%), on AFDC (91%); and had minimum support persons (30% not any), medical (27%), psychiatric (46%), and substance abuse problems (45%). Based on the Denver Developmental Screening Test, 61% of the children under five had at least one developmental lag and 44% had two or more lags; 60% of the children over five required further medical and psychiatric evaluation and 55% were performing below average in school. The findings have implications for the delivery of health services to homeless families in shelters.