Rough Sleepers

Over two classes, we read Tracy Kidder’s “RoughSleepers” which captures the work (and relationships) of Dr. Jim and and the Street Team crew among Boston’s unsheltered homeless population.

Mental Health

Drug Use

• Oregon Decriminalization
• A Drug-Decriminalization Fight Erupts in Oregon
• A Manufactured Tragedy: The Origins and Deep Ripples of the Opioid Epidemic (Slides)
• Bodies in streets, parks, buses: The everyday horror of stumbling on an overdose victim

Population Overview

Highlights in part the challenges of matching homeless individual to census records. The match rate (69% rate in homeless shelters and 17% outdoor locations) is lower than the housed population (90% rate population). 44% of indviduals were employed in the previous year (table 3).

Meyer et al. (2023)

Cost Effectiveness

Focusing on Santa Clara Californai, Flaming et al. (2015) shows that for those experiencing “persistent homelessness”, the cost of providing housing (~$20,000) is less than the status quo (~$83,000).

Flaming et al. (2015)

Articles: Calfifornia’s Audit

Interm Supportive Housing

• J-PAL Study

Intensive Homeless Prevention

• J-PAL Study

Permanent Supportive Housing

We focus on work concerning Housing First. Using survival analysis techniques, Tsemeberis and Eisenberg (2000) illustrate that a Housing First approach improves housing stability relative to a linear contiuum of care.¹ Tsemberis et al. (2004) is a helpful read in that it highlights some of the challenges of conducting empirical work in this setting - the need to oversample the control group in the design of the randomized control trial because they are expected to be more likely to remain homeless and therefore more difficult to track - interpreting reported alcohol and drug use.

Tsemberis and Eisenberg (2000)

Tsemberis et al. (2004)

Cohen (2023)

Articles: PSH Denver 1, PSH Denver 2

Prevention Strategies

Burt et al. (2006)

Elderly

Slides

Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative (2024)

Eduction

• Program helping NYC homeless students is out of money in June. Mayor Adams has no plan to fund it.