Discriminant analyses of willingness to talk with a counselor and most difficult issues in the experience of unsheltered homeless men: self-actualization, loneliness, and depression.

Stepwise discriminant analyses of willingness to talk with a counselor (Wilks Lambda=.75, p<.001) and most difficult issues (Wilks Lambda=.81, p<.001) in 145 unsheltered homeless men's experience were examined using self-actualization constructs, loneliness, depression, and history-of-being-homeless variables. For example, homeless men with higher scores on loneliness, autonomy, courage, Jonah Complex, and self-acceptance were less willing to talk with a counselor. The variable, longer intervals of having a home after a first homeless episode, was associated with personal issues rather than with homeless issues. Selected participants' responses to the items, "what have you learned from your homeless experience that you could not have learned any other way" and "what would you like for me to know about your experience of homelessness," are posted to give perspective on a homeless person's internal frame of reference. This phenomenological approach indicated strengths as well as weaknesses of homeless men. Counseling programs should embrace all homeless persons including mentally well, nondrug-dependent homeless individuals.