Quasi-Experimental Study of the Effects of Homelessness Prevention

无家可归预防效果的准实验研究

• 批准号: 1629194
• 负责人: James Sullivan
• 金额: $ 23.95万
• 依托单位: University of Notre Dame
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-01 至 2018-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1629194&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Quasi; Experimental; Study; Effects; Homelessness

This project aims at determining the impact of providing temporary financial assistance to those at risk of homelessness on several important outcomes: homelessness, housing stability, and crime. The investigators will evaluate a Homelessness Prevention Call Center (HPCC) in a major U.S. city to determine how this assistance impacts these outcomes. This project will test whether those receiving temporary financial assistance are less likely to become homeless, move, or be arrested. The investigators will further examine whether the cost of reducing homelessness and improving other outcomes through financial assistance is outweighed by the benefits. Therefore, this research will allow policymakers to make more informed decisions when allocating limited resources to reduce homelessness, putting resources towards the most effective programs. Moreover, this project will examine how this prevention service impacts different types of recipients, so the results will importantly inform service providers who run these call centers. Providers can also make more informed choices, targeting emergency funding to those most likely to benefit from them, which will improve the cost effectiveness of homelessness prevention programs.This project is the first quasi-experimental study to examine the impact of temporary financial assistance on homelessness, housing stability, and crime. While the gold standard in impact evaluation is a randomized controlled trial study, this is challenging in homeless policy studies because the population being served is both extremely vulnerable and highly mobile. These factors make keeping track of recipients of programming difficult and costly. Consequently, there is only limited information about the impact of homelessness prevention programs. Thus, this research fills an important gap in the literature on the effect of homelessness prevention programs. This project is possible because of the unique way in which the HPCC connects eligible callers with financial assistance, and because of a rich set of outcomes available through several different administrative data sources. This research will be informative not only to scholars who study housing programs, but also to policymakers and program managers who struggle to decide how best to distribute limited resources among prevention and treatment services to address the issue of homelessness.

该项目旨在确定向有无家可归风险的人提供临时经济援助对以下几个重要结果的影响：无家可归、住房稳定性和犯罪。调查人员将评估美国一个主要城市的无家可归预防呼叫中心（HPCC），以确定这种援助如何影响这些结果。该项目将测试那些接受临时经济援助的人是否不太可能无家可归、搬家或被捕。调查人员将进一步研究通过财政援助减少无家可归者和改善其他结果的成本是否超过了收益。因此，这项研究将使政策制定者在分配有限的资源以减少无家可归者时做出更明智的决定，将资源投入最有效的项目。此外，该项目将研究这种预防服务如何影响不同类型的接收者，因此结果将重要地告知运营这些呼叫中心的服务提供商。提供者还可以做出更明智的选择，将紧急资金用于最有可能从中受益的人，这将提高预防无家可归方案的成本效益。该项目是第一个准实验性研究，旨在检验临时经济援助对无家可归者、住房稳定性和犯罪的影响。虽然影响评估的黄金标准是随机对照试验研究，但这在无家可归者政策研究中是具有挑战性的，因为所服务的人群既极其脆弱，又高度流动。这些因素使得跟踪编程接受者变得困难和昂贵。因此，关于预防无家可归计划的影响的信息有限。因此，这项研究填补了关于无家可归预防计划影响的文献中的一个重要空白。这个项目之所以成为可能，是因为HPCC以独特的方式将合格的呼叫者与财政援助联系起来，而且还因为通过几个不同的管理数据源可以获得丰富的结果集。这项研究不仅为研究住房项目的学者提供了信息，也为决策者和项目经理提供了信息，他们正在努力决定如何在预防和治疗服务中最好地分配有限的资源，以解决无家可归问题。