From urban capitals to rural countryside, and every locality in between, homelessness is a national phenomenon that affects every community. Each locality responds to it differently through the variety of homeless programs and services it offers. By doing such, each locality displays a certain level of attentiveness to their homeless population. This article explores how 10 small southeastern cities respond to their local homelessness and seeks to compare the homeless attentiveness of Bowling Green, Kentucky to similar localities. An evaluative measure of municipal attentiveness based on a range of homelessness program areas is used to score each city’s response to its homelessness. A non-parametric test finds that there is not a significant difference in the attentiveness of evaluated localities, and in turn concludes that Bowling Green’s attentiveness to its homelessness is not significantly less than that of the other cities. However, an analysis of the descriptive statistics reveal the strengths and weaknesses of Bowling Green’s response to homelessness, identifying prevention and emergency services as areas needing more attention. This research and its following discussion serve as a starting point for the ten localities examined, as well as other similar localities, to examine their own response to local homelessness.
Advisor(s) or Committee Chair
Social and Behavioral Sciences | Social Work
Aldrich, Courtney L., "Search for Advocacy: A measure of local attentiveness to homelessness" (2010). Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects. Paper 222.