Homeless spell exits and returns: Substantive and methodological elaborations on recent studies

This article builds upon a series of recent studies that have examined exit s from and returns to homelessness. The data come from a three-wave panel s tudy of homeless persons. The article's major substantive concern is the re lationship between the type of housing situations to which homeless persons move upon exiting homeless spells and their likelihood of becoming homeles s again. The issue of selection bias due to sample attrition, a serious met hodological problem common to longitudinal research, is also addressed.