Researchers from the University of Notre Dame are studying homelessness prevention efforts in Cincinnati. The university鈥檚 works with service providers to evaluate poverty interventions.
"We believe that the social service community contains the innovations that will help us figure out how to solve poverty," said Fran Gallagher, assistant director of project development. "But we also believe that evidence needs to be part of that solution. We don't know enough about what works, why it works, for whom it works, and so we really need evidence to be part of the story."
Researchers are currently studying the at Greater Cincinnati鈥檚 Strategies to End Homelessness. The study will track short-term and long-term outcomes of people who participate in shelter diversion, which aims to keep people in secure housing without having to stay in a temporary shelter.
Gallagher says the research team wants to document long-term outcomes for participants.
"So as a result of preventing you from entering the homeless system, do you have increased employment? Do you have less criminal justice involvement? By the way, most of them are families. Do your kids have increased educational attainment because they're not experiencing the trauma of becoming homeless?" she said.
Gallagher says the goal is to provide service organizations with science-backed evidence of how effective their programs are. That can help with funding requests and making programs more efficient.
Kevin Finn is president and CEO of Strategies to End Homelessness.
"The main policy change we would like to achieve would be convincing the federal government ... that we could make better use of the same funding they're already giving us, if they would just allow us to shift a portion of that funding toward prevention activities," Finn said. "We currently receive $33 million a year from [Housing and Urban Development] to spend in Cincinnati and Hamilton County on homelessness-related programs. And all of those programs require us to wait until someone is on the street or in a shelter before we can assist them."
That research began in November and will continue for at least two years.
The Lab for Economic Opportunities plans to launch another research study in Cincinnati later this year, looking at a project that uses predictive data analytics to identify families at risk of losing housing and intervening with support. That project is a partnership of several nonprofits, led by Strategies to End Homelessness. It's funded by the city of Cincinnati, which means it's limited to supporting city residents, and so far only has the capacity to support families with children.
"We would love to expand it to single individuals as well, who make up two-thirds of our homeless population, and to expand it to a wider geography, mainly all of Hamilton County," Finn said. "And then with the research complete, we could help other communities replicate these services and programs into their communities."
Local families who fear their housing is unstable can fill out a survey at .
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