Introduction

Despite the media's attempt to perpetuate the image of the homeless loner, and the work of some early researchers suggesting homeless persons were isolated from both informal and formal networks of support (e.g., Bahr, 1973; Bogue, 1963; Rossi, 1989), research has clearly demonstrated the opposite (e.g., Irwin, LaGory, Ritchey, & Fitzpatrick, 2008; LaGory, Ritchey, & Fitzpatrick, 1991; Reitzes, Crimmins, Yarbrough, & Parker, 2011; Wright, Rubin, & Devine, 1998). While the work on how connected homeless persons are to one another continues, what has not been explored to date is how homeless persons perceive connection to their larger community. Even though some research has suggested otherwise (LaGory et al., 1991; Smith, 2008), no research that we are aware of has actually examined whether there is a general perception of community connectedness on the part of homeless persons that acknowledges any ties to a larger social context.

Considerable work in community psychology has found persons reporting self-person connection, as well as self-community connection (e.g., Aron, Mashek, & Aron, 2004; Mashek, Cannaday, & Tangney, 2007; Mashek, Stuewig, Furukawa, & Tangney, 2006). Derived from the theoretical framework of self-expansion (Aron & Aron, 1986), this work attempts to extend the construct of inclusion of others in self to the inclusion of community in self. The argument that is advanced is that if our self undergoes significant and often-positive transformation through the inclusion of others (i.e., friends, relatives, romantic partners), then we too should see similar transformative powers through the expression or perception of community connectedness. Thus, we see community connectedness as including some perception of the larger community in the self. While community may be perceived as a local, definable place, it clearly can be more than that and may have important relational qualities that cannot be assessed using other standard measures of social integration.

While much of this earlier work has focused on developing a useful, replicable instrument to assess self-connectedness to others or the community, research has also questioned whether this perception of connectedness has any primary or secondary benefits for persons who feel greater connection to their social world (Mashek et al., 2006). While somewhat limited in scope, research has shown that higher social connectedness has some benefits (Lee & Robins, 2000; Lee, Keough, & Sexton, 2002). In the larger context, enhanced connectedness and social integration has some well-established health benefits (Fitzpatrick & LaGory, 2011; Lin, Ye, & Ensel, 1999; Irwin et al., 2008; Putnam, 2000).

While these benefits may vary from one context or one population to another, higher community integration appears to be related to a higher social and psychological functioning. Clearly, the causal chain that links functioning and connectedness is one of certain debate and is outside the scope of the current study. However, establishing the perception of connectedness, validating the measurement across diverse populations, and attempting to determine what experiences, circumstances, and personal/social resources might increase or decrease the perceived degree of community connectedness appear to be fertile research ground. Thus, the intent of the current paper is to determine the nature of community connectedness among homeless persons and what factors, if any, help to “explain” that degree of perceived connectedness.

While our study is anchored in the self-to-community framework, it is still largely exploratory. Nevertheless, we pose two central research questions that motivate our analyses: (a) How connected are homeless persons relative to other subpopulations that have been examined regarding the self-community nexus? and (b) What factors, either experiential/circumstantial or personal/social resources, help to “explain” the degree of self-community connectedness among the homeless population? Addressing these questions serve two distinct purposes.

One, the question of how connected homeless persons are to their larger community context remains largely unexplored. The earlier work of community psychologists that has been referenced above provides us with a valid, reliable measure to assess connectedness, particularly in light of its use in other subpopulations (Collier, 2015; Mashek et al., 2007, 2006). As such, this investigation may provide further evidence of the generalizability and utility of using a single-item construct to assess self-community inclusion. Specifically, we assess the utility of the Inclusion of Community in the Self Scale (ICS) that others have used to examine the extent to which a variety of subpopulation's perceived connectedness to their particular communities (e.g., Collier, 2015; Mashek et al., 2007, 2006).

Two, attempting to develop a “catalogue” of experiences/circumstances and personal/social resources that either enhance or diminish the perception of community connectedness among homeless persons is again something to date that has not been done. We would expect that providing a better understanding of what those factors are and how exactly they relate to or “explain” connectedness could be important to developing effective programming at the individual level.

Generally, experiences/circumstances and resources of homeless persons can be thought of as falling into several categories including but not limited to life experiences (past and present), circumstances (structural and individual), behaviors (enhancing and negative), and resources (individual and social). A number of studies have shown the utility of using some or all of these factors as predictors of a wide variety of outcomes among homeless subgroups (e.g., Fitzpatrick & LaGory, 2011; Irwin et al., 2008; Lee, Tyler, & Wright, 2010); again, no one to date has examined the interrelationship between these types of factors and the degree of perceived community connectedness among homeless persons.