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Abstract
This study attempts to answer questions regarding the prevalence of compassion fatigue, determine turnover rates, and survey coping strategies among homeless service providers in the United States. Homelessness is a national concern that is decreasing, but not rapidly enough. Homeless individuals enter homelessness through a variety of means and due to a variety of risk factors–including, but not limited to, substance use, mental health problems, health concerns, and economic concerns. Homelessness also increases an individual’s likelihood of encountering each of those risk factors. Those who provide services to the homeless often bear witness to the difficult circumstances that homeless individuals encounter, and can experience compassion fatigue, a concept closely related to burnout, as a result. Compassion fatigue can hurt workers’ performance and lead to poorer client outcomes. This author also investigated the relationship between turnover, coping strategies, and service provider rates of compassion fatigue as potential factors to either exacerbate or mediate compassion fatigue.
