Understanding and Addressing Homelessness
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (PST)
- Chair: Angela Wyse, University of Chicago
Homelessness and the Persistence of Deprivation: Income, Employment, and Safety Net Participation
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
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
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