Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This presentation will describe how evaluation data from one federal department were tapped to explore unanswered questions about families experiencing homelessness at another. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Family Options Study is a multi-site random assignment experiment designed to study the impact of various housing and service interventions for homeless families. Over 2,200 families were enrolled in the study from 12 communities across the country. Data collection for this study extended into domains beyond housing and homelessness outcomes including benefit receipt, employment, child welfare, health and more. This rich dataset follows both parents and children over a three-year period.

HUD has published findings on the housing and homelessness outcomes of study families. With limited resources and in recognition of the value of the data collected in the study, HUD has supported other agencies in accessing data to explore additional questions. Knowing that these valuable data were available for analysis, the Administration for Children and Families together with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, both within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), leveraged the information collected to answer relevant questions about parents and their children experiencing homelessness.

HHS has released a series of ten briefs, with topics ranging from the experiences of young children and adolescents, family and child separations, patterns of benefit receipt and connections to the safety net, experiences of Hispanic families, predictors of long-term housing stability, employment, and adult behavioral health. These briefs do not rely on the experimental design of the study, but instead draw from the extensive data HUD collected to provide descriptive information about these families and their experiences.

This presentation will discuss the opportunities and barriers for such partnerships as well as considerations for future partnerships.