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Persons with serious alcohol and drug problems who are attempting to maintain abstinence often lack an alcohol- and drug-free living environment that supports sustained recovery. Residential recovery homes, called “sober living houses” in California, are alcohol- and drug-free living environments that offer long-term support for persons with addictive disorders. They do not offer formal treatment services but usually encourage or mandate attendance at self-help recovery groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The approach involved analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of different research designs for studying residential recovery homes. Alternatives to randomized designs that are able to capture “real world” data that are readily generalized are described and understudied topics are identified.

A significant limitation of traditional randomized designs is they eliminate mutual selection processes between prospective residents and recovery home residents and staff. Naturalistic research designs have the advantage of including mutual selection processes and there are methods available for limiting self-selection bias. Qualitative methods should be used to identify factors that residents experience as helpful that can then be studied further. Innovative studies are needed to investigate how outcomes are affected by architectural characteristics of the houses and resident interactions with the surrounding community.

Use of the recommended strategies could lead to findings that are more informative, intuitively appealing, and interpretable.

Recovery homes and similar programs will be more responsive to consumers.

This paper represents one of the first to review various options for studying recovery homes and to provide suggestions for new studies.

Recent international experiences of community inclusion have produced a major change in residential care for people with intellectual disability (ID). Assignment and outcome assessment through new person‐centred measures are raising increasing interest; however, the information on quality of life and accommodation is still limited. This paper aims to provide an overview of the application of quality of life models and the size of the provision of different living arrangements.

A systematic mapping of the literature of the last decade was followed by an expert guided review of the available evidence.

QoL outcomes measures of living arrangements in people with ID show conceptual and methodological challenges. The following key topics were identified: individual level: issues related to health status, behavioural problems and other personal factors (ageing, choice and empowerment); family and peers; local level: accommodation, architecture and urbanization, and economic aspects (deprivation and costs); macro level: social participation (community inclusion). The residential solutions that are currently considered of highest efficiency are small apartments in the community and “cluster centers”.

The level of quality of life is very relevant in the assessment of living arrangements in people with ID although its assessment still shows significant limitations. Some accommodation typologies seem more effective than others. New conceptual models of inclusive residential care support the convenience of a wide range of accommodation alternatives that may fit the individual needs of a highly heterogeneous population group. A unique residential alternative, albeit optimal from a community care perspective, may not be adequate for all persons with ID.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss citizen participation in public service delivery protests in the Sedibeng district municipality of South Africa. The municipality consists of three local municipalities: Lesedi, Emfuleni and Midvaal.

A structured sample of 1,000 respondents was used in the study. The descriptive and inferential statistics approaches were applied to understand the root causes of the protests.

Overall, the average level of satisfaction with public service delivery is quite low. Service delivery protest participants opine that doing so is the only way of getting things done in the municipality. The overwhelming opinion of respondents is that the councillors are unresponsive.

Public service delivery in Sedibeng municipality must improve so that citizens' confidence in municipal governance can rise. Sedibeng municipality should urgently improve the socio‐economic conditions in the communities and should prioritise crime prevention, job creation and development for young people. Health care delivery is important to long‐term residents. Government should ensure that all allegations of corruption and maladministration are speedily and transparently dealt with, without fear or favour.

Studies that provide insight into citizen participation in public services delivery protests in Africa are very few and so this study makes an important contribution to our understanding of this important field.

Over the past two decades, a growing number of Americans have decided to live in gated residential communities. Academic research and case studies tend to focus on explaining this growth phenomenon from a range of perspectives, yet surprisingly little has been written about the preservation and growth of existing gated communities. In response to this gap in the literature, the purpose of this paper is to illustrate the use of strategic planning as a means of addressing issues that pertain to sustaining and growing gated residential communities.

This paper applies principles of strategic management to the process of planning for residential preservation and growth. The residential context is a golf‐focused gated community located in the mountains of western North Carolina. It uses focus groups as a qualitative means of identifying important strategic issues. These issues serve as the basis for designing a survey for community residents. The survey results provide quantitative information that enables development of strategies targeted toward preservation and growth of the community.

Results from this paper suggest that traditional strategic planning techniques provide an effective method that common interest housing developments can use to help identify and respond to issues affecting their viability and growth.

This paper applies strategic planning techniques as a new area in the residential planning literature.

This paper looks at the quality and value of leisure and friendships that people with learning disabilities experience in the community. It provides an overview of the problems in developing friendships for people with moderate, severe and profound learning disabilities transferred from hospital to community care and identifies recommendations for commissioners, providers, staff and carers for the development of friendships through leisure in the community.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze citizen satisfaction with public service delivery in the Sedibeng district municipality of South Africa. The municipality consists of three local municipalities, Lesedi, Emfuleni and Midvaal.

The sampling procedure was carefully designed, taking into account the spatial distribution of the population in the Sedibeng district municipality and the three local municipalities. A structured sample of 1,000 respondents was used for the study and descriptive and inferential statistics approaches were used. The focus was on citizen satisfaction with public service delivery in health care, housing, water, electricity, solid waste removal, community services or overall physical appearance of the community, cutting crimes and job creation.

Respondents are most dissatisfied with roads maintenance, government efforts to create jobs and reduce crime. Respondents from Emfuleni local municipality hold more positive feelings about public service delivery in the area of water, electricity, and solid waste. Their most negative feeling is in the area of job creation, roads and the municipality's efforts in cutting down on crime. On balance, respondents from Lesedi hold positive feelings about public service delivery only in the area of water and electricity supplies. Similarly, their most negative feelings are in the area of job creation, roads, and the municipality's efforts in cutting crime. Respondents from Midvaal do not hold positive feelings about public service delivery in their local municipality. Similar to other two local municipalities, their most negative feelings are in the area of job creation, roads, and the municipality's efforts in cutting crime. Overall, the most negative sentiment about public service delivery has been expressed by respondents from Midvaal, followed by Emfuleni and Lesedi.

It is important for public service delivery in Sedibeng municipality to improve so that citizens' public confidence can rise.

Throughout Africa, governments have been entrusted to finance and provide basic services such as health, education, telecommunications, safe water and modern sanitation. Adequate access to these services enhances development. Public services are a key determinant of quality of life that is not measured in per capita income. They are also an important element of any poverty reduction strategy. Thus, improving public service delivery is one of the biggest challenges in the continent.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the conceptualisation and implementation of learning communities (LCs) at two selected female residences. I argue that learning is mediated by collaborative, social interaction and that learning does not only happen in the classroom, but rather in the everyday living spaces. I therefore propose the implementation of LCs as another alternative to help students navigate the educational landscape.

The author employed a qualitative case study design located in the socio-constructivist paradigm. Such a perspective values participants’ perspectives as knowledge is viewed as being constructed collaboratively. Thus, to evaluate the first implementation cycle at Residence X (in 2010), the author conducted semi-structured interviews to hear participant voices on what worked, what did not and what should be improved.

The findings suggest that the engagement in LCs was valuable for learning since it could assist students to cope with university life. However, careful conceptualisation and implementation, and more specifically, a critical examination of the entire context is required. Students cannot operate in a system that is failing them. Enabling opportunities that will foster a safe space for collaborative engagement is desirable.

This study was conducted at two residences only and only a few students participated. A longitudinal study is required at residences as the formation of LCs is a process and does not happen over night.

Third generation cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) can be used to guide a revision of the five-pillar model framework and study time implementation at residences.

An openness to change and seeing the context as a fluid space will aid a transformation agenda.

This paper shows how complementary lenses – CHAT and communities of practice – allowed a critical examination of the entire context and further highlights the complexity of conceptualising and implementing LCs.

Family socio-cultural values and its practices have pervasive effects on early age at first marriage in every society. The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare how family socio-cultural values and its practices exert effect on early age at first marriage between Muslim and Santal couples in rural Bangladesh.

First of all through snow-ball process and checking of marriage documents the author carefully identified 598 couples from Muslim and 560 from Santal who were married the first time between 1995 and 2005 years and whose age range was 12-48 years for husbands and 10-45 years for wives. Then, 585 pairs of couples (295 for Muslim and 290 for Santal) were randomly selected from the Talonda of Rajshahi district, Bangladesh. Data were collected, applying interview method with semi-structural questionnaire in family setting. Then the collected data were analyzed, using χ2 test and binary logistic regression (BLR) technique.

The frequency distribution showed that most of the Santal couples compared to the Muslim ones were married before the minimum legal age in Bangladesh. The results of χ2 test of the frequency distribution were significant at p<0.01 and p<0.05 level. In addition, results of BLR analysis suggested that early age at first marriage was significantly (p<0.01 and p<0.05) associated with family socio-cultural values studied. It is argued that ethnicity, family pattern, residence pattern, illiteracy and ascriptive occupational status were the risk factors to persist early marriage among the Santal couples than the Muslim ones in rural Bangladesh.

Although the findings are suggestive to understand differences in early marriage associated with family socio-cultural values between the ethnic couples, further cross-cultural study should be conducted on how socio-psychological factors affect early marriage between the ethnic groups. In spite of the limitations these findings may have implications in comparative social policy practice to prevent early marriage associated with changes in family socio-cultural values between the ethnic groups in Bangladesh.

The findings in the paper are original in linking between family socio-cultural theory, its related policy and practice to prevent early marriage between the ethnic couples in Bangladesh.

The purpose of this study was to explore the concept of distrust of traditional banking institutions as a factor that can explain the choice to remain unbanked in a marketplace that is designed to be financially inclusive.

Earning, spending, saving and borrowing data collected between May 2021 and February 2022 from 17,819 consumers living in the United States were used to examine the factors associated with distrust of banks. Using a conceptual framework borrowed from the health services profession, the study was conducted in two stages. At the first stage, distrust among the unbanked and banked was estimated using a Boruta-random forest algorithm. At the second stage of the analysis, a logit regression model was estimated to validate the variables identified in the Boruta-random forest analysis.

Results from the analyses show that distrust of banks is multi-layered where being older, believing the country is heading in the wrong direction and being less confident in one's ability to obtain a personal loan in the amount of $1 to $999 are important factors related to distrust of banks among the unbanked.

This study shows how an ensemble machine learning technique based on a decision-tree methodology can be used to obtain unique insights into complicated data and large datasets within the bank marketing field.

The paper provides a discussion about ways domains of trust and specific variables can be utilized to address the persistent problem of financial exclusion in the United States. Implications for bankers, researchers, educators and policymakers are provided.

Roughly half a million persons in the USA are homeless on any given night and over a third of those individuals have significant alcohol/other drug (AOD) problems. Many are chronically homeless and in need of assistance for a variety of problems. However, the literature on housing services for this population has paid limited attention to comparative analyses contrasting different approaches. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors examined the literature on housing models for homeless persons with AOD problems and critically analyzed how service settings and operations aligned with service goals.

The authors found two predominant housing models that reflect different service goals: sober living houses (SLHs) and housing first (HF). SLHs are communally based living arrangements that draw on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. They emphasize a living environment that promotes abstinence and peer support for recovery. HF is based on the premise that many homeless persons with substance abuse problems will reject abstinence as a goal. Therefore, the HF focus is providing subsidized or free housing and optional professional services for substance abuse, psychiatric disorders, and other problems.

If homeless service providers are to develop comprehensive systems for homeless persons with AOD problems, they need to consider important contrasts in housing models, including definitions of “recovery,” roles of peer support, facility management, roles for professional service, and the architectural designs that support the mission of each type of housing.

This paper is the first to consider distinct consumer choices within homeless service systems and provide recommendations to improve each based upon architecture and community planning principles.