VOLUNTARY SHELTERS FOR THE HOMELESS AS A POPULATION OF ORGANIZATIONS: A STUDY OF CLASSICAL CHARITY AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO BUREAUCRATIC - PROFESSIONAL MODELS (WASHINGTON, D.C., PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA)

The research is a descriptive study of voluntary shelter organizations providing basic services to the homeless. The notion explored was that the services and programs of these providers are used by the homeless street and shelter people who avoid the traditional welfare institution. Data from Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia were collected in interviews with providers and from observation, the literature and the media. Following the Glaser constant comparison strategy, propositions and hypotheses were generated. These are presented and analyzed in a framework which focuses on characteristics of shelter organizations running counter to those of the traditional welfare institution.;Although shelter organizations seem ephemeral, disorderly and transient, as a population, a selection process governs the emergence of new organizations and the disappearance of old ones, and it is able to account for client groups whose numbers and composition change over time. They are built in such a way that their population gives them the adaptability, flexibility and the variety to provide basic services to marginal subgroups.;These findings are important because the number, size and problems of homeless subgroups continue to increase and the welfare institution can not serve them without dismantling its organizational structure, which is not likely to happen. The population of organizations has been the only answer so far and must be kept in mind when a future service model is constructed.;It was found that the public welfare institution with its large-scale professional bureaucracy can not reach its would-be clients because these hard-to-serve marginal subgroups fear and avoid its services and will not comply with its accountability, its information-gathering and reporting procedures.