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Comment: Fred Karnas

Housing Policy Debate Volume 18 Issue 1 2007 Comment on Dennis P. Culhane et al.'s "Testing a typology of Family Homelessness Based on Patterns of Public Shelter Utilization in Four U.S. Jurisdictions: Implications for Policy and Program Planning" Fred Karnas Download Full Article With this research, Culhane and his colleagues have added to the understanding of homeless families and opened the door to an important discussion of the optimal public policies for addressing family homelessness. Because the eclectic nature of the data sets makes analysis challenging, this research should be viewed as an initial foray into understanding different types of homeless families. The typology will require further corroboration, but the policy questions raised by this research are an important contribution to the public policy discourse on family homelessness. This comment discusses three policy-related issues raised either explicitly or implicitly by Culhane et al.'s research: the role of transitional housing in ending family homelessness, the challenge of implementing systems change, and the impact of federal mainstream programs and policies on family homelessness.