A mereological qualitative study protocol for understanding the lived experience of homelessness in California

Although qualitative interview studies provide in-depth understandings of the opinions and lived experiences of social groups, they are typically small in scale, bounded by a small number of physical or virtual spaces, and designed to capture relatively demarcated aspects of participants’ experiences. This paper describes the qualitative component of a large mixed method study of homelessness in California. The qualitative study consisted of seven substudies across eight counties, each exploring different dimensions of homelessness. We recruited participants from the overall sample, a statewide representative sample of adults experiencing homelessness recruited in eight counties, based on their responses to questions from the survey interviews. Using a novel data management strategy, we analyzed each substudy as a stand-alone project, and explored the relationship between thematic content across the substudies. Our mereological study design presents an approach for developing complex qualitative policy studies across a range of topic areas.