Attitudes toward the Homeless in Two New York City Metropolitan Samples

Abstract

Attitude questionnaires were administered to a sample of New York City residents and a suburban sample who worked in New York City (n = 112 for each). While overall attitudes toward the homeless were sympathetic, feelings about a shelter for the homeless in one's neighborhood were not favorable. Feelings toward a shelter were unfavorable regardless of whether the shelter was to serve “over 20” or “up to 10” homeless persons. Despite demographic differences on income, age, time living in the New York City area and education, the two samples differed significantly on only two responses related to attitudes or to experiences with the homeless. New York City residents rated their attitudes toward the elderly as more sympathetic than did suburban residents (p <. 05), though both samples reported very favorable attitudes. Also, a greater proportion of the New York City residents, 76.7%, as opposed to 52.8% for suburban residents, stated that the situation of the homeless had gotten worse in the past few years (p <. 001). To examine the relationships between attitude responses and other variables, factor analyses were carried out for each sample on those variables that correlated significantly with the attitude measures. Composite variables based on these factors revealed that, for both New York City and suburban residents, significantly more favorable attitudes were obtained for those respondents who had given money to the homeless and who had used the media and their own reading in forming an opinion about the homeless.