Office to End Homelessness Working with University of Minnesota Faculty and Students on Evaluation

About the Program

Category: Human Services (Best in Category)

Year: 2010

When a new initiative—in this case Hennepin County’s Heading Home Hennepin plan to end homelessness—is launched, significant resources are typically needed in order to jumpstart the program. The Research and Project Evaluation Coordinator for Hennepin County’s Office to End Homelessness, Lisa Thornquist, heads the Heading Home Hennepin 10 year plan to end homelessness. In order to build the type of evaluation needed for this complex and far-reaching program, Dr. Thornquist has successfully engaged several University of Minnesota researchers and their students in a range of research activities to better understand causes of homelessness and effectiveness of various intervention activities. The work done to date includes an evaluation of the Housing First program, which places frequent users of county shelters into stable housing. Research findings showed that this program reduced shelter stays, increased health care coverage and reduced police contact for both those with histories as crime perpetrators and crime victims. The coordinators of the project are presently exploring a follow up on research done to date, and also reaching out to other University researchers and students to further expand the range of research projects around homelessness.