Rural homeless shelters: A comparative analysis

Although there has been some increased attention to the issue of homelessne ss and homeless shelter services, little effort has been made to understand the operation of rural homeless shelters. This situation persists despite decades of effort showing that the rural environment provides a very differ ent context for the delivery of services than an urban environment. This st udy hypothesized that contextual differences in rural environments would pr oduce various strategies of service delivery among homeless shelters. A typ ology of rural environments was created. Homeless shelters within each of f our cells of the typology were selected. Comparative case study analysis pr ovided partial support for the hypothesis.