The Characteristics and Causes of Homelessness among At Risk Families with Children in Twenty American Cities Running Head: Family Homelessness in Twenty American Cities

This paper explores the characteristics and causes of homeless families with children using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. These unique data measure a rich set of risk factors likely thought to influence homelessness at the individual, household, and city level. We find that homelessness is most strongly linked to informal and institutional social support, and is only modestly associated with local housing and labor market conditions. These results suggest that interventions designed to build and strengthen informal and institutional social support among low-income mothers, including low-income housing assistance, will have the greatest impact on reducing the likelihood of family homelessness, while policies designed to alter local housing and labor market conditions are unlikely to substantially reduce the risk of this pressing social problem.