Study explores why workers are leaving their jobs in the homeless services sector

BUFFALO, N.Y. – A new study by a University at Buffalo social work researcher shows that 43% of frontline workers in the homeless services sector nationally reported an intention to leave their jobs.

The findings published in the International Journal on Homelessness represent the first scholarly examination of what’s driving turnover by surveying current employees who were considering a job change.

The study conducted a mixed methods analysis of data from a national survey of the U.S. homeless services workforce to fill an important research gap left by previous studies that relied on opinions from researchers, policy advocates and program directors for why the turnover was occurring.

Results of the current study uncovered understandable issues such as satisfaction with pay and opportunities for promotion as indicators associated with a lower intention to leave, with work-based factors such as burnout representing a greater likelihood of leaving.

But that’s only part of the story, according to Amanda Aykanian, PhD, an assistant professor in the UB School of Social Work, the study’s lead author.

“Using mixed methods helped underscore the things we presumed would be factors, but it also pointed to some things that weren’t being accounted for in the quantitative data,” says Aykanian, an expert in homeless services systems and workforce issues. “We weren’t in surveys asking a lot of questions about people’s opinions of their organization or their personal reasons for leaving, perhaps not directly related to the job, like caretaking responsibilities or relocation of a spouse.”

Aykanian says solutions rest in a comprehensive understanding of what’s causing the problem of worker retention.

“We have to think holistically about factors that go beyond pay scales,” says Aykanian. “We certainly need to pay workers adequately, but we also must think about the organizational culture, the actual day-to-day experiences that factor into how people feel about their jobs and their intention to stay long term.

“Simply providing adequate pay is not going to prevent burnout or correct some of the bigger systemic and organizational cultural factors that people are dealing with.”

Homelessness in the United States has increased sharply since 2015, with as many as 770,000 people nationally experiencing homelessness on a single night. The number of people working in the homeless services sector, meantime, has not kept pace, particularly in New York City, Washington State, the District of Columbia and California, where 24% of the nation’s population of people experiencing homelessness is located.

There are similar challenges in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe.

Finding ways to reverse an expanding problem accompanied by a shortage of workers available to address the challenges is critical, according to Aykanian.

“One of the things we talk about in the paper is taking a trauma informed approach to supervision,” she says. “The work is difficult and taxing, but workers also carry their own trauma and trauma histories into the workplace.

“Supervisory systems mindful of this can respond in the moment to things that can be activating for people and risk burnout.”

Aykanian says the paper addresses many key areas but points generally to the need for further evidence.

“We have to look at things such as the characteristics of organizations with good worker retention versus those with poor worker retention,” she says.