why do homeless people avoid shelters
The main reason why many homeless people shied away from shelter services was because submitting to a drug-treatment program was a prerequisite for admission. The vast majority of the street homeless population interviewed by Wasserman and Clair said they didnât have a drug problem and would not say they did just to access the shelter.
Four years ago, a Texas Tech sociologist took a different approach by studying homeless people who preferred living on the streets to shelters. When he asked why many stayed away from shelters, what he found uncovered one of the biggest problems with how social assistance programs deal with the homeless across the country.