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Understanding and Addressing Homelessness

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (PST)

Hilton San Francisco Union Square, Continental Ballroom 1&2
Hosted By: American Economic Association
  • Chair: Angela Wyse, University of Chicago

Homelessness and Children’s Mental Health: Evidence from Medicaid in New York City

Mike Cassidy
,
Princeton University
Janet Currie
,
Princeton University
Sherry Glied
,
New York University
Renata Howland
,
New York University

Abstract

More than half of New York City’s residents receive health insurance through Medicaid, including 1.4 million children. At the same time, NYC is home to a quarter of the United States’ population of families experiencing homelessness. In this study, we link Medicaid administrative records with data on homelessness and housing courts and show there is considerable overlap between these populations. After describing housing instability among the Medicaid population, we turn our attention to the relationship between children’s shelter experiences and their physical and mental health. We document interesting patterns in the prevalence of mental health conditions among housing-unstable children and examine the trajectories of diagnosis and treatment around spells of homelessness. We pay particular attention to the promise of specialized mental health shelters as means of improving the wellbeing of housing-unstable children.

Homelessness and the Persistence of Deprivation: Income, Employment, and Safety Net Participation

Bruce D. Meyer
,
University of Chicago
Angela Wyse
,
University of Chicago
Gillian Meyer
,
University of Pennsylvania
Alexa Grunwaldt
,
Yale University
Derek Wu
,
University of Virginia

Abstract

Homelessness is arguably the most extreme hardship associated with poverty in the United States, yet people experiencing homelessness are excluded from official poverty statistics and much of the extreme poverty literature. This paper provides the most detailed and accurate portrait to date of the level and persistence of material disadvantage faced by this population, including the first national estimates of income, employment, and safety net participation based on administrative data. Starting from the first large and nationally representative sample of adults recorded as sheltered and unsheltered homeless taken from the 2010 Census, we link restricted-use longitudinal tax records and administrative data on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicare, Medicaid, Disability Insurance (DI), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), veterans’ benefits, housing assistance, and mortality. Nearly half of these adults had formal employment in the year they were observed as homeless, and nearly all either worked or were reached by at least one safety net program. Nevertheless, their incomes remained low for the decade surrounding an observed period of homelessness, suggesting that homelessness tends to arise in the context of long-term, severe deprivation rather than large and sudden losses of income. People appear to experience homelessness because they are very poor despite being connected to the labor market and safety net, with low permanent incomes leaving them vulnerable to the loss of housing when met with even modest disruptions to life circumstances.

The Effect of Emergency Financial Assistance on Employment and Earnings

Daniel Hungerman
,
University of Notre Dame
David Phillips
,
University of Notre Dame
Kevin Rinz
,
U.S. Census Bureau
James Sullivan
,
University of Notre Dame

Abstract

We examine the labor supply effects of short-term income transfers for families experiencing a housing crisis. We link callers to an emergency-assistance homelessness-prevention hotline to their federal tax records to measure employment and earnings in years surrounding their calls. Our methodology exploits quasi-random variation in the availability of assistance to compare similar families receiving and not receiving funds. Looking up to five years post-assistance, we find no evidence that assistance lowers earnings or employment. There is some evidence, especially for the lowest earners, of earnings and employment gains. Our results indicate that any income effect of temporary transfers for those in crisis is minimal and that these transfers may convey labor market benefits for the poorest of the poor.

The Impacts of an Unconditional Cash Transfer for Homeless Families: Experimental Evidence from Illinois

Nour Abdul-Razzak
,
University of Chicago
John Eric Humphries
,
Yale University
Stephen Stapleton
,
University of Chicago
Winnie Van Dijk
,
Yale University

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of a large one-time cash transfer to homeless families with children. We evaluate how such a cash transfer impacts future homelessness and housing stability. Additionally, we study how assistance affects recipients' well-being, mental health, and labor market participation. After recruiting over 900 adults with children staying at emergency shelters and transitional housing in Illinois, participants were randomly assigned to a treatment group that received a one-time unconditional $9,500 cash transfer, or a control group that received $500. Here, we focus on outcomes up to one year after treatment.

Discussant(s)
Gary Painter
,
University of Cincinnati
Adrienne Sabety
,
Stanford University
Daniel Tannenbaum
,
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
JEL Classifications
  • I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
  • J0 - General