Table 1:

Examples of Composite Narrative Results Including Socio-Ecologic Themes and Selected Quotes

Themes Across Socio-Ecologic Levels*	Example quotes from participant interviews related to the themes**	Composite Narrative
INDIVIDUAL 1-An older man experiencing homelessness not wanting to stay due to feeling of shame and ‘being a burden’. 2-Older men often find it hard to not be the man of the house and must fit into a family dynamic he is inexperienced with. COMMUNITY 3-Over-crowding - leaving only couches and other non-private spaces for stays.	1, 2: “It made me feel ashamed, I feel shameful, you know, because I’m supposed to be taking care of my business at my own place...That was more me, it was more me.” 1, 2: “I bring what I can but they always, I mean, they, they taking care, they do what they have to do. I’m always welcome that they got food. I’m welcome to it, but I always try to have my own, you know. Try not to go there hungry and I’m, I try to get out of there as soon as I can, not laying around.” 1: “I say, ’Yeah, but what happened to me I done to myself and I need to fix it myself.’”	Joe is 58 years old and lost his housing 3 years ago when he lost his job in a warehouse. He’s living in a tent under the freeway. His sister lives in a 2-bedroom apartment in Oakland with her husband and two teenage children. Joe has stayed at his sister’s for 6 nights in the last 2 years. He says the reason he doesn’t stay more often is because he doesn’t want to be a burden to her and her family. She said that he could stay more often.
INDIVIDUAL 1-Participant prefers local services but there are placements farther away, and they may be isolating. COMMUNITY 2-Pressures from social service agencies for placements in other cities makes people feel they are being forced out of their communities, where they prefer to stay. POLICY 3-Housing shortages and high rents lead to the only available placements are far from participants’ communities.	1, 3: “...we talked to our brother last night, he said he was going to start coming to get us. He’s trying to get us to move up there (Sacramento, 2 hours away) but I told him, “I’m not leaving my church, I’m not.” He said, “Well, you ain’t got to pay but $800.” I said, “I’m not leaving my church, D----, the Lord going to find me a place out here that I can pay for by myself.” 2: “It was difficult because the lady, she was very, very persistent. She kept, she called me like three times a week to come pick up my keys.”[alluding to the participant’s social worker pressuring participant to take a place in another county just as he was getting offered a place in Oakland where he wanted to be.]	Richard is a 65 year old currently living on the street. He doesn’t want to live at a shelter. He has received his medical care at a clinic in Oakland for 15 years and likes his doctor. He would like to live with his ex-wife and have her take care of him - -She could get paid to be his care giver/ IHHS worker. However, his case manager has recommended senior subsidized housing in Fresno instead.
INDIVIDUAL 1-Risk to substance use recovery with move “back” to the old neighborhood. COMMUNITY/POLICY 2-Gentrification, widespread evictions, and limited available and affordable housing in the neighborhood. COMMUNITY/POLICY 3-Experiences of racial discrimination. 4-Experiences of police profiling.	1: I: “What’s wrong here?” P: “Because I know, I know too many people. Too much drugs and as long as I’m here the longer I’m going to get high.” 2: “Prices first. And new people comin’ in, old people goin’ out. A little harder now. Basically that. People that were working down here, it’s not no more. Other people comin’ in, buyin’ up the property now.” 3: “I went to the city council meetin’ one time and I was asked to leave. Now, you have to –you can’t be sayin’ that, you got to leave. But I’m tellin’ the truth. See. And you don’t want to hear the truth. Just like they said, you can’t handle the truth! These people out here –and you’re talkin’ about Black Lives Matter –black lives ain’t the only lives that matter. All lives matter. But the –it’s prevalent to us because we the ones getting killed.” 4: “So I didn’t know how to get there, and these guys were walkin’, and they didn’t want to wait for the bus so I walked with ‘em up there. I gets to the BART station, police up there actin’ crazy, like he wanna take us back to jail, ‘cause one of them dudes was doin’ somethin’, and they –one of –take us all to jail, so I gets up on the BART, the police came up there and they’s askin’ us our names and stuff, they knew we was from Santa Rita. Any time –they knowin’ people from Santa Rita. Seem like they just know who get released and everything.”	Tasha is a 56-year-old African-American woman who is in recovery from years of heroin use. She recently lost her part-time job at her church and is staying at the shelter. Her cousin has an apartment in West Oakland and has offered her the living room couch. She would like to move there but worries about being back in her old neighborhood. She has heard the police are targeting a lot of old residents because the neighborhood is getting expensive and upscale.
INDIVIDUAL 1-Loss of family home triggering homelessness. 2-Lack of privacy in someone else’s space can increase feelings of anxiety, frustration and isolation. INTERPERSONAL 3-Relationship strain when moving into someone else’s world. COMMUNITY/POLICY 4-Over-crowding - leaving only couches and other non-private spaces for stays. 5-Predatory housing market creates family pressures to sell houses.	1: I: But I mean, did it [family home] get sold, or is family there? P: Well, I think they sell it, I’m pretty sure they did. But it was auctioned off, like that.” 2, 3: “Yeah, and she, I mean, it was some nights I stayed there and, it was understood from the beginning, no drinking, no drugs, no smoking, no, no this, no that so that was understood but I felt that if I wanted to, let’s just say, she’s very protective. 4: “I’m basically homeless. But I go from homeless to my brother house, from my brother house to homeless. He got a family of his own so it’s basically crowded.” 5: “She sold the house out from under me, she put a restraining order out on me so I had to leave the house, and then she put the house up for sale and then cashed the Escrow check.”	Brenda is a 63 year old African American woman who became homeless last year when her mother died and the house she lived in all her life was sold by her brother. She’s been staying on and off with different friends ever since. She could live with her niece, but it’s all the way on the other side of town and she’s worried about being isolated. She also thinks her niece’s apartment is too crowded, often with people she doesn’t know.
INDIVIDUAL 1-Older adults’ experiences of cognitive and physical decline and fear of being vulnerable on street during and after experiences of homelessness. INTERPERSONAL 2-Stays may jeopardize finances of the host. COMMUNITY/POLICY 3-Rent vulnerability widespread across family.	1: “You know, this is a 24-hour job mentally and physically with me now. Used to be mental not physical, too. But I’m doing a lot better compared to when I, when I had the surgery on the hip, even after I had the fall, the hip is the one hasn’t given me any problems, so that’s a blessing in disguise. But now I got to work on the other parts of the body and they’re not going anywhere.” 2: “It’s hard for me, you know what I mean, because I pay $600...that leaves me with not very much to buy food. So..I mean, I be like really stretching it.”[host]. 3: “Yeah. Because I realized when I got there, that I could better handle the rent than she could. With my disability, the money I’m makin’, she was strugglin’, so I basically took the burden off her.”	Howard is 68 year old man, and has been homeless off and on for many years. He uses a walker to get around and is worried that his health is declining. He feels that he is more forgetful these days. His son lives with his girlfriend in a one bedroom apartment in San Leandro and receives workers compensation because of his bad back. Howard and his son are talking about Howard moving in, but his son’s landlord says he will increase the rent if anyone moves in.

^*Due to length, not every theme presented has a quote provided in the table.

^**Text denotes an ‘I’ for interviewer and a ‘P’ for participant. All quotes presented in the Table are drawn from the participant interviews, although themes analyzed from hosts and key informant interviews supported the identified themes presented.