Scarcity and cognitive ability: the role of support services among people at-risk of or experiencing homelessness

This study investigates the role of support services, in particular, emergency relief, and how it may lessen the cognitive burden among people experiencing (financial) scarcity and at-risk of or experiencing homelessness (<i>n</i> = 1070). The results indicate that cognitive ability does not depend on whether one is homeless, holding other things constant. The results also indicate that the measures of scarcity's associations with cognitive ability are heterogeneous. In addition, having asked friends or family for financial help is positively associated with cognitive ability; while not being able to pay one's utility bills on time is negatively associated with cognitive ability, statistically significant at the 10% level. Furthermore, the association between having had to go without food when one is hungry and emergency relief depends on both the key scarcity measure and its interaction term, statistically significant at the 10% and 5% level, respectively.