IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jpamgt/v40y2021i3p914-963.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Policies To Reduce And Prevent Homelessness: What We Know And Gaps In The Research

Author

Listed:
  • William N. Evans
  • David C. Phillips
  • Krista Ruffini

Abstract

Homelessness may be both a cause of and one of the more extreme outcomes of poverty. Governments at all levels and private organizations have a variety of tools to combat homelessness, and these strategies have changed dramatically over the past quarter century. In this paper, we catalog the policy responses and the existing literature on the effectiveness of these strategies, focusing on studies of individual‐level effects from randomized controlled trial evaluations and the best quasi‐experimental designs. We conclude by discussing outstanding questions that can be addressed with these same methods.

Suggested Citation

  • William N. Evans & David C. Phillips & Krista Ruffini, 2021. "Policies To Reduce And Prevent Homelessness: What We Know And Gaps In The Research," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(3), pages 914-963, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:40:y:2021:i:3:p:914-963
    DOI: 10.1002/pam.22283
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22283
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/pam.22283?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Albert Saiz, 2010. "The Geographic Determinants of Housing Supply," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1253-1296.
    2. Corinth, Kevin, 2017. "The impact of permanent supportive housing on homeless populations," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 69-84.
    3. Aliprantis, Dionissi & Martin, Hal & Phillips, David, 2022. "Landlords and access to opportunity," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    4. Lance Freeman & Yunjing Li, 2014. "Do Source of Income Anti-discrimination Laws Facilitate Access to Less Disadvantaged Neighborhoods?," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 88-107, January.
    5. Philip M. E. Garboden & Eva Rosen & Stefanie DeLuca & Kathryn Edin, 2018. "Taking Stock: What Drives Landlord Participation in the Housing Choice Voucher Program," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(6), pages 979-1003, November.
    6. Edward Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2018. "The Economic Implications of Housing Supply," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 3-30, Winter.
    7. Osborne Jackson & Laura Kawano, 2015. "Do increases in subsidized housing reduce the incidence of homelessness?: evidence from the low-income housing tax credit," Working Papers 15-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    8. Jeffrey R Kling & Jeffrey B Liebman & Lawrence F Katz, 2007. "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 83-119, January.
    9. Goodman, Sarena & Messeri, Peter & O'Flaherty, Brendan, 2016. "Homelessness prevention in New York City: On average, it works," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 14-34.
    10. Joseph Gyourko & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2013. "Superstar Cities," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 167-199, November.
    11. Barrow, S.M. & Herman, D.B. & Córdova, P. & Struening, E.L., 1999. "Mortality among homeless shelter residents in New York City," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 89(4), pages 529-534.
    12. Shawn Moulton, 2013. "Does Increased Funding for Homeless Programs Reduce Chronic Homelessness?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(3), pages 600-620, January.
    13. Palmer, Caroline & Phillips, David C. & Sullivan, James X., 2019. "Does emergency financial assistance reduce crime?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 34-51.
    14. Shinn, M. & Greer, A.L. & Bainbridge, J. & Kwon, J. & Zuiderveen, S., 2013. "Efficient targeting of homelessness prevention services for families," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 103(S2), pages 324-330.
    15. Robert Collinson & Peter Ganong, 2018. "How Do Changes in Housing Voucher Design Affect Rent and Neighborhood Quality?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 62-89, May.
    16. Robert Collinson & Ingrid Gould Ellen & Jens Ludwig, 2015. "Low-Income Housing Policy," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 2, pages 59-126, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko & Raven E. Saks, 2005. "Why Have Housing Prices Gone Up?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 329-333, May.
    18. Brian A. Jacob & Jens Ludwig, 2012. "The Effects of Housing Assistance on Labor Supply: Evidence from a Voucher Lottery," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 272-304, February.
    19. Rebecca Diamond & Tim McQuade & Franklin Qian, 2019. "The Effects of Rent Control Expansion on Tenants, Landlords, and Inequality: Evidence from San Francisco," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(9), pages 3365-3394, September.
    20. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    21. Susin, Scott, 2002. "Rent vouchers and the price of low-income housing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 109-152, January.
    22. Early, Dirk W. & Olsen, Edgar O., 1998. "Rent control and homelessness," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 797-816, November.
    23. Maria Hanratty, 2017. "Do Local Economic Conditions Affect Homelessness? Impact of Area Housing Market Factors, Unemployment, and Poverty on Community Homeless Rates," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 640-655, July.
    24. Phillips, David C., 2017. "Landlords avoid tenants who pay with vouchers," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 48-52.
    25. Daniel Gubits & Marybeth Shinn & Michelle Wood & Scott R. Brown & Samuel R. Dastrup & Stephen H. Bell, 2018. "What Interventions Work Best for Families Who Experience Homelessness? Impact Estimates from the Family Options Study," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(4), pages 835-866, September.
    26. Hopper, K. & Shinn, M. & Laska, E. & Meisner, M. & Wanderling, J., 2008. "Estimating numbers of unsheltered homeless people through plant-capture and postcount survey methods," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(8), pages 1438-1442.
    27. Benjamin W. Fisher & Lindsay S. Mayberry & Marybeth Shinn & Jill Khadduri, 2014. "Leaving Homelessness Behind: Housing Decisions Among Families Exiting Shelter," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 364-386, April.
    28. Jason M. Rodriguez & Tessa A. Eidelman, 2017. "Homelessness Interventions in Georgia: Rapid Re-Housing, Transitional Housing, and the Likelihood of Returning to Shelter," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(6), pages 825-842, November.
    29. David C. Phillips, 2020. "Measuring Housing Stability With Consumer Reference Data," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(4), pages 1323-1344, August.
    30. Glaeser, Edward L & Gyourko, Joseph & Saks, Raven, 2005. "Why Is Manhattan So Expensive? Regulation and the Rise in Housing Prices," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(2), pages 331-369, October.
    31. Natasha Pilkauskas & Irwin Garfinkel & Sara McLanahan, 2014. "The Prevalence and Economic Value of Doubling Up," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(5), pages 1667-1676, October.
    32. Eric Chyn, 2018. "Moved to Opportunity: The Long-Run Effects of Public Housing Demolition on Children," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(10), pages 3028-3056, October.
    33. David S. Lucas, 2017. "The Impact of Federal Homelessness Funding on Homelessness," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(2), pages 548-576, October.
    34. Tsemberis, S. & Gulcur, L. & Nakae, M., 2004. "Housing First, Consumer Choice, and Harm Reduction for Homeless Individuals with a Dual Diagnosis," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 94(4), pages 651-656.
    35. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Lawrence F. Katz, 2016. "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 855-902, April.
    36. Michael D. Eriksen & Amanda Ross, 2015. "Housing Vouchers and the Price of Rental Housing," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 154-176, August.
    37. Michelle Wood & Jennifer Turnham & Gregory Mills, 2008. "Housing affordability and family well‐being: Results from the housing voucher evaluation," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 367-412, January.
    38. Milby, J.B. & Schumacher, J.E. & Wallace, D. & Freedman, M.J. & Vuchinich, R.E., 2005. "To house or not to house: The effects of providing housing to homeless substance abusers in treatment," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 95(7), pages 1259-1265.
    39. Terra McKinnish, 2005. "Importing the Poor: Welfare Magnetism and Cross-Border Welfare Migration," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1).
    40. Olsen, Edgar O, 1972. "An Econometric Analysis of Rent Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(6), pages 1081-1100, Nov.-Dec..
    41. Brian A. Jacob & Max Kapustin & Jens Ludwig, 2015. "The Impact of Housing Assistance on Child Outcomes: Evidence from a Randomized Housing Lottery," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(1), pages 465-506.
    42. Cragg, Michael & O'Flaherty, Brendan, 1999. "Do Homeless Shelter Conditions Determine Shelter Population? The Case of the Dinkins Deluge," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 377-415, November.
    43. O'Flaherty, Brendan & Wu, Ting, 2006. "Fewer subsidized exits and a recession: How New York City's family homeless shelter population became immense," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 99-125, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Byrne, Thomas & Montgomery, Ann Elizabeth & Chapman, Alec B. & Pettey, Warren & Effiong, Atim & Suo, Ying & Velasquez, Tania & Nelson, Richard E., 2023. "Predictors of homeless service utilization and stable housing status among Veterans receiving services from a nationwide homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing program," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    2. Kühnle, Daniel & Johnson, Guy & Tseng, Yi-Ping, 2022. "Making It Home? Evidence on the Long-Run Impact of an Intensive Support Program for the Chronically Homeless on Housing, Employment and Health," IZA Discussion Papers 15678, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Andrew Sullivan & Changwe Park, 2022. "Do Federal Grants for Medication-Assisted Opioid Treatment Reduce Homelessness?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 703(1), pages 285-302, September.
    4. Lodermeier, Alison, 2024. "Credit access and housing insecurity: Evidence from winter utility shutoff protections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    5. Kuehnle, Daniel & Johnson, Guy & Tseng, Yi-Ping, 2023. "JUE Insight: Making it home? Evidence on the long-run impact of an intensive support program for the chronically homeless on housing, employment and health," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    6. Deza, Monica & Maclean, Johanna Catherine & Solomon, Keisha, 2022. "Local access to mental healthcare and crime," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. William N. Evans & David C. Philips & Krista J. Ruffini, 2019. "Reducing and Preventing Homelessness: A Review of the Evidence and Charting a Research Agenda," NBER Working Papers 26232, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Christian A. L. Hilber & Olivier Schoni, 2022. "Housing policy and affordable housing," CEP Occasional Papers 56, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Ning Zhang, 2022. "In-kind housing transfers and labor supply: a structural approach," Economics Series Working Papers 992, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    4. Elior Cohen, 2022. "The Effect of Housing First Programs on Future Homelessness and Socioeconomic Outcomes," Research Working Paper RWP 2022-03, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    5. Kevin Corinth & Grace Finley, 2020. "The geography of unsheltered homelessness in the city: Evidence from “311” calls in New York," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 628-652, September.
    6. Downes, Henry & Phillips, David C. & Sullivan, James X., 2022. "The effect of emergency financial assistance on healthcare use," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    7. Aliprantis, Dionissi & Martin, Hal & Phillips, David, 2022. "Landlords and access to opportunity," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    8. Ellen, Ingrid Gould, 2020. "What do we know about housing choice vouchers?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    9. David C. Phillips, 2020. "Measuring Housing Stability With Consumer Reference Data," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(4), pages 1323-1344, August.
    10. Aliprantis, Dionissi & Martin, Hal & Tauber, Kristen, 2024. "What determines the success of housing mobility programs?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    11. Mense, Andreas, 2020. "The Impact of New Housing Supply on the Distribution of Rents," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224569, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Hyslop, Dean R. & Rea, David, 2019. "Do housing allowances increase rents? Evidence from a discrete policy change," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    13. Raya, Josep Maria & Torres-Pruñonosa, Jose, 2022. "The importance of administrative data in the evaluation of the incidence of social housing allowance programmes," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    14. O'Flaherty, Brendan, 2019. "Homelessness research: A guide for economists (and friends)," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-25.
    15. Andre Luis Squarize Chagas & Guilherme Malvezzi Rocha, 2019. "Housing program and social conditions impact: Evidences from Minha Casa Minha Vida program lotteries in Brazil," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2019_40, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP), revised 05 Nov 2019.
    16. Divya Singh, 2020. "Do Property Tax Incentives for New Construction Spur Gentrification? Evidence from New York City," 2020 Papers psi856, Job Market Papers.
    17. Corinth, Kevin & Lucas, David S., 2018. "When warm and cold don’t mix: The implications of climate for the determinants of homelessness," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 45-56.
    18. Dauth, Wolfgang & Mense, Andreas & Wrede, Matthias, 2024. "Affordable Housing and Individual Labor Market Outcomes," IZA Discussion Papers 17359, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Kevin C. Corinth, 2017. "Toward a more efficient housing safety net," AEI Economic Perspectives, American Enterprise Institute, April.
    20. Corinth, Kevin & Irvine, Amelia, 2023. "JUE Insight: The Effect of Relaxing Local Housing Market Regulations on Federal Rental Assistance Programs," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:40:y:2021:i:3:p:914-963. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/34787/home .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.