Two Types Of Homeless

On any given night, the homeless can be divided into two groups: those who sleep in free shelters (the "shelter homeless") and those who sleep in places not intended for human habitation, such as bus stations, subway trains, automobiles, doorways, and abandoned buildings. Those who sleep outside the shelters are generally known as the "street homeless," even though many sleep in abandoned buildings, bus stations, and other indoor locations. The distinction between the street and shelter homeless works fairly well on any given night, but it breaks down when we follow people over time. Only a minority of the homeless report having spent all of the past seven nights in the same place. Many report that they were in a shelter one night, a subway station the next, and a friend's home the night after that. - Christopher Jencks