Pastoral care and counseling with the "un-homeless homeless": understanding cultures of homelessness.

This article presents a subset of findings from a larger study exploring the lived experiences of 16 former residents of a 90-day emergency family shelter program in Los Angeles County. Interpretative phenomenological analysis serves as a qualitative method for understanding the cultural uniqueness of the "un-homeless homeless." The findings offer implications for culturally competent pastoral care and counseling in the context of family homelessness and attend to both the process and content of caregiving.