Document Tag: homelessness

“When Someone Cares About You, It’s Priceless”: Reducing Administrative Burdens and Boosting Housing Search Confidence to Increase Opportunity Moves for Voucher Holders (2023)

Using in-depth interview data from families and service providers, we examine the success of the Creating
Moves to Opportunity (CMTO) program in Seattle, focusing on how it reduced many of the learning, compliance, and psychological costs of using housing vouchers so that participants could expand their residential
choices. CMTO’s approach of combining information and flexible financial resources with personalized
high-quality assistance bolstered participants’ confidence, agency, and optimism for their housing searches
in high-opportunity neighborhoods. Accessible, collaborative, pertinent communication from program staff
was central to addressing both the psychological costs of the federal Housing Choice Voucher program and
families’ experiences in housing and social services. These results provide evidence to inform housing policy
as well as to enrich broader scholarship on program take-up, implementation research, and the role of Navigators and service quality in addressing administrative burdens low-income families face while using other
social programs.

Homelessness and Housing Insecurity Among Community College Students: A Longitudinal Evaluation of a Housing Choice Voucher Program (2024)

Housing insecurity and homelessness among American community college students are widespread
problems that reduce the odds of college attainment and undermine students’ health and well-being.
In 2014 Tacoma Community College and the Tacoma Housing Authority launched the College Housing
Assistance Program (CHAP) to address this challenge by offering housing choice vouchers to local community college students experiencing or at serious risk of experiencing homelessness. If students could
successfully navigate the application process and local housing market, the vouchers offered a short-term
subsidy to reduce their rent and hopefully promote degree completion. Over the next several years, CHAP
received national and regional awards and became a model for affordable college housing programs. This
evaluation examines its effects on students before the housing authority ended the program in 2022.

Basic Needs Insecurity in Texas Community Colleges: Landscape Analysis (2023)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Texas community colleges increasingly focused on addressing students’ basic needs insecurities (BNI), such as food and housing insecurity, so that students could continue to make progress towards their academic goals. As colleges continue to recover from the pandemic lockdowns and prepare for the winding down of historic levels of government support, faculty, staff, and administrative leaders are poised to consider how best to refine, scale, and sustain their BNI service offerings to most effectively support student success.
Over the past decade, the research on BNI has grown dramatically, documenting the widespread prevalence of BNI among the student population, the negative effects of BNI on student outcomes, and promising solutions colleges have implemented to best support students. This report documents findings across several critical issue areas relevant for community college leaders to consider as they make plans for enhancing BNI service offerings.

College focused rapid rehousing: Deploying an existing community model to address homelessness on campus (2024)

Research indicates that financial and housing insecurity challenges are widespread on most college campuses throughout the U.S. However, there is wide variability in how campuses address these challenges. This study reports on a three-year implementation of the College-Focused Rapid Rehousing pilot; an initiative in California by which universities commissioned community providers to assist students in need via a modified Rapid Rehousing (RRH) intervention. RRH is a widely implemented intervention that combines move-in assistance, short-term rental subsidies, and ongoing case management, to help individuals quickly transition into stable housing. The mixed-methods evaluation included analyses of online surveys (n = 141), administrative records (n = 368), and focus groups conducted with staff across eight campuses (n = 35). Survey findings indicate that CFRR programs assisted a diverse group of students with similar histories of housing insecurity. Quantitative analyses also show that most participants experienced the intervention as designed, though with some inconsistencies in how quickly some were assisted. Qualitative findings highlight contextual factors that affected the consistency of the intervention, including tight rental markets and philosophical disagreements among administrators about the
intervention’s scope. Despite study limitations, findings provide insights into the applicability of the RRH model on campus settings and directions for future research.

Recognizing and Responding to Poverty in College Students: What can Nurses do?

People may not consider college students when they think about populations who experience poverty. However, rising costs of college and changes in student demographics have contributed to poverty within this group. Many students experience poverty and subsequent basic needs insecurity; they may lack safe housing and the ability to access adequate amounts of nutritious food. Poverty has significant mental, physical, and academic implications for these college students. Recognizing that education is a social determinant of health, it is clear that nurses can address this issue. This article provides an overview of poverty in the context of college student concerns, including actions to promote students’ well-being and academic success. We describe current interventions to support students as well as the stigma that often accompanies poverty and may prohibit a student from asking for help. The authors present information for nurses in various roles on college campuses, such as educator and advocate; advanced practice program faculty; and student healthcare provider. An exemplar describes how faculty at one school of nursing have responded to student poverty concerns. Finally, we suggest recommendations to begin or enhance current efforts to address poverty in college students.

The Dynamics and Measurement of High School Homelessness and Achievement (2023)

How school districts measure homelessness among their students has implications for accountability and funding, as well as for supporting student success. Yet, measuring homelessness among high school students is challenging because students move in and out of experiencing it. Using administrative student-level data from a mid-sized public school district in the southern United States, we show that different commonly used procedures to measure which students are considered homeless can yield markedly different estimates of high school graduation rates for these students. This is largely because of differences in how districts classify students who experience homelessness but later become housed. To address the potentially negative effects of housing insecurity on academic achievement, it is important to first identify a common way to diagnose the problem.

Supporting Students Experiencing Homelessness Pilot Program (2023)

Basic needs insecurity is a critical barrier to college students’ access1 and success, undermining persistence and completion rates for postsecondary students.2 In Washington, college students face significant challenges in meeting their housing and other basic needs while completing their credentials. Gaps in covering critical costs such as housing and food are pervasive among students in both two-year and four-year institutions. Students of color and students who experience marginalization based on their identities and circumstances — such as former foster youth, LGBTQI+ students, and students with dependents — are disproportionately impacted.3 To address this need, the Washington state Legislature enacted the Supporting Students Experiencing Homelessness (SSEH) pilot program with 2SSB 5800 (2019). The Legislature expanded the pilot program twice — first by passing SHB 1166 (2021) and again through a proviso in the 2022 supplemental budget. The Legislature made the SSEH pilot permanent through the passage of ESSB 5702 (2023). SSEH provides grants for colleges to build systems to identify and support students facing homelessness and students who aged out of the foster care system. The Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) and the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) administered the four-year SSEH pilot program, which consisted of 33 programs across six public baccalaureate institutions (PBIs) and 27 in the community and technical college system (CTCs).

Portland State University Student Housing Insecurity Interim Report (2023)

This study on student housing insecurity and homelessness was funded as part of a HUD FY2023 Community Project Funding Opportunity awarded to Portland State University. Phase 1 of the study, which led to this report by PSU’s Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative (HRAC), includes a literature review; a summary of PSU student survey results; a description of PSU programs based on interviews with staff and administrators; an analysis of programs at other institutions; and a set of recommendations for better addressing student housing needs. Phase 2 of the study will include the results of a comprehensive student survey on housing insecurity and homelessness to be conducted this fall, as well as a pair of reports by outside consultants on options for creating additional student housing and addressing policy barriers to effectively meeting student housing needs.