A common myth about families living in homeless shelters is that they are laconically and contentedly waiting around for housing, financial support through welfare or jobs, and other resources and services. Nothing could be further from the truth. Single parents in shelters dealing with inequities incurred by poverty are busy trying to procure housing, jobs, and other resources while managing children’s behavior and homework, and while attempting to maintain the family’s sense of relational and emotional integrity. Thirty-six African American, Afro-Caribbean, and Latinx families living in a New York City shelter were interviewed about the time challenges they face and their means of coping with those challenges. Six themes emerged: (1) franticness, time pressure, and sense of having not enough time; (2) the temporal unpredictability of daily life; (3) the unpredictability of time to live in shelter; (4) anxious waiting for next steps toward employment and housing; (5) the shelter’s control of time; and (6) the importance of family time and strategies used to sustain it. These findings are discussed using theoretical perspectives about the elements of temporal behavior, as well as research on time and personal agency, and recommendations are made for professionals working to support homeless families, especially around their temporal challenges.

中文翻译：

---

时间是无家可归家庭斗争和复原力的源泉

关于住在无家可归者收容所的家庭的一个普遍误解是，他们简洁而满足地等待住房、通过福利或工作获得的经济支持以及其他资源和服务。没有东西会离事实很远。庇护所中的单亲父母因贫困而面临不平等，他们忙于购买住房、工作和其他资源，同时管理孩子的行为和家庭作业，同时努力维护家庭的关系感和情感完整性。生活在纽约市避难所的 36 个非裔美国人、加勒比黑人和拉丁裔家庭接受了采访，了解他们面临的时间挑战以及应对这些挑战的方法。出现了六个主题：（1）疯狂、时间压力和时间不够用的感觉；(2) 日常生活的时间不可预测性；(3) 避难所居住时间的不可预测性；（四）焦急等待下一步就业和住房；（五）收容所对时间的控制；(6) 家庭时间的重要性以及用于维持它的策略。使用关于时间行为要素的理论观点以及时间和个人代理的研究讨论了这些发现，并为致力于支持无家可归家庭的专业人员提出了建议，特别是围绕他们的时间挑战。