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财政援助的影响：无家可归，住房稳定和犯罪。调查人员将评估美国主要城市中的无家可归者预防呼叫中心（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财政援助的人是否不太可能无家可归，移动或被捕。调查人员将进一步研究是否通过利益来减少无家可归和改善其他成果的成本是否超过了。因此，这项研究将使决策者在分配有限的资源以减少无家可归者的情况下，将资源投入到最有效的计划时做出更明智的决定。此外，该项目将研究该预防服务如何影响不同类型的接收者，因此结果将重要的是通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，将紧急资金针对最有可能从中受益的人，这将提高无家可归者预防计划的成本效益。该项目是首次研究临时财务援助对无家可归，住房稳定和犯罪的准实验研究。虽然影响评估的黄金标准是一项随机对照试验研究，但在无家可归的政策研究中，这是一项挑战，因为所服务的人群既脆弱又高度流动。这些因素使跟踪编程的收件人变得困难和昂贵。 因此，关于无家可归计划的影响只有有限的信息。 因此，这项研究填补了有关预防无家可归计划影响的文献中的重要差距。由于HPCC将合格的呼叫者与经济援助联系起来，并且由于通过几种不同的管理数据源可用的一系列结果，因此，该项目之所以可能。这项研究不仅对学习住房计划的学者，还将为决策者和计划经理提供帮助，他们努力决定如何最好地在预防和治疗服务之间分配有限的资源以解决无家可归的问题。