Scope Rates on this page use substantiated CPS investigations (Categories I – III). n = 289,280 · 23% of records with a recorded outcome. All-cases values shown as comparisons where relevant.

Two housing indicators — outright homelessness and housing instability short of homelessness. Each is shown with its own Michigan map, year-by-year trend, and top counties.

Homelessness

Substantiated only

Narratives that describe the family as homeless or living in a shelter, vehicle, or other non-housing setting.

Where in Michigan · tap a county to compare
Year by year
Top counties · stable years only (n ≥ 1,000)
DRAFT Brian E. Perron, PhD · The Data Lab at the University of Michigan School of Social Work

Housing instability

Substantiated only

Narratives that describe housing instability short of homelessness — eviction, frequent moves, doubled-up living, or unsafe housing conditions.

Where in Michigan · tap a county to compare
Year by year
Top counties · stable years only (n ≥ 1,000)
DRAFT Brian E. Perron, PhD · The Data Lab at the University of Michigan School of Social Work

Substance involvement in these cases

Across all cases, Stimulants is the substance most linked with homelessness — it appears in 10% of these cases, 2.8× the rate in cases that do not mention homelessness. Within the substantiated slice the multiplier shrinks or flips, because a substantiated homelessness case does not need a co-occurring risk factor to justify substantiation.

Every substance class shown against homelessness, ranked by all-cases lift. Both slices appear so the substantiation artifact is visible, not hidden.

Substance All cases Substantiated Both mentioned (all)
Share of homelessness cases Lift Share of homelessness cases Lift
Stimulants10.2%▲ 2.81×17.7%▲ 2.12×6,063
Opioids9.4%▲ 1.82×14.2%▲ 1.63×5,575
Sedatives, hypnotics, anxiolytics1.7%▲ 1.61×3.6%▲ 1.23×1,038
Alcohol9.3%▲ 1.45×15.8%▲ 1.01×5,521
Any substance involvement44.3%▲ 1.27×53.9%▲ 1.20×26,340
Cannabis13.9%▲ 1.26×21.7%▲ 1.09×8,238

Lift = P(substance | homelessness) ÷ P(substance | not homelessness). A value of 1× means the substance appears at the same rate whether or not homelessness is mentioned.

Substance involvement in these cases

Across all cases, Stimulants is the substance most linked with housing instability — it appears in 7% of these cases, 1.9× the rate in cases that do not mention housing instability. Within the substantiated slice the multiplier shrinks or flips, because a substantiated housing instability case does not need a co-occurring risk factor to justify substantiation.

Every substance class shown against housing instability, ranked by all-cases lift. Both slices appear so the substantiation artifact is visible, not hidden.

Substance All cases Substantiated Both mentioned (all)
Share of housing instability cases Lift Share of housing instability cases Lift
Stimulants7.0%▲ 1.88×13.6%▲ 1.58×5,495
Opioids6.9%▲ 1.31×10.2%▲ 1.13×5,390
Cannabis13.4%▲ 1.22×22.6%▲ 1.14×10,466
Any substance involvement41.1%▲ 1.18×45.7%▲ 1.01×32,159
Sedatives, hypnotics, anxiolytics1.2%▲ 1.12×2.8%▼ 0.96×970
Alcohol6.9%▲ 1.07×12.7%▼ 0.80×5,423

Lift = P(substance | housing instability) ÷ P(substance | not housing instability). A value of 1× means the substance appears at the same rate whether or not housing instability is mentioned.

Housing indicators track county economic position

Every Michigan county in the analysis was matched to three Census ACS 2018–2022 economic indicators — median household income, poverty rate, and adult educational attainment — and Spearman rank correlations were computed against each county's CPS 2022-2024 substantiated mention rates. Because the 41 counties in the analysis are the full population of Michigan counties meeting the case-count threshold rather than a sample, ρ values are the observed rank correlations across that population and no p-values are reported.

Housing instability shows the strongest gradient in the framework: ρ = -0.62 with median income, ρ = +0.44 with poverty rate, ρ = -0.65 with educational attainment. The educational-attainment correlation is the largest single rank correlation in this analysis. Homelessness follows the same directional pattern with smaller magnitudes. The umbrella DSM-5 drug-class indicator shows a negative correlation with educational attainment and weaker correlations with income and poverty. Domestic violence documentation is essentially uncorrelated with county economic position on all three measures.

Correlation matrix showing Spearman rank correlations between four CPS indicators (rows: umbrella drug-class, domestic violence, homelessness, housing instability) and three county economic indicators (columns: median household income, poverty rate, bachelor's degree or higher). Housing instability has the largest negative correlations with income and education and the largest positive correlation with poverty.
Blue cells are negative correlations (higher CPS-indicator rate ↔ lower economic-indicator value); red cells are positive. n = 41 counties (those with ≥ 200 substantiated cases in the CPS window). CPS window 2022-2024 × ACS window 2018-2022 — the two windows overlap in real time so both data sources describe the same recent-year window.

Economic indicators come from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey 5-year estimates, an entirely independent data source from the CPS narratives used to build the housing indicators. The DSM-5 drug-class indicator on this page registers only documented references to substance categories in the caseworker narrative; it is not a diagnostic indicator and is not an indicator of abuse or neglect.