Student Research

Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative helps students hone their skills to become the next generation of thinkers to solve homelessness. Our students explore topics ranging from the history of housing policies to youth homelessness.

Working with students is one of the best parts of the job," said Research Director Greg Townley, "because they bring new insight.

 

History of Housing Policy in the United States

Graduate student Lauren Everett created a brief history of housing policy in the United States from 1843 to the present. She looked at major events that helped shape our country’s understanding and policies around property. Events include everything from the donation land claim act, which entitled each white, male settler to 320 acres in the Oregon territory, to the rent control stabilization legislation in 2019. 

Safe Parking at PSU

Between 11% and 14% of university students experience homelessness around the country, which underscores a need for immediate solutions. This poster examines a proposed program for Safe Parking at PSU where students and staff experiencing homelessness can use their parking pass to sleep in their vehicles at night for emergency shelter. The program would link students and staff to facilities and support including mailing addresses, kitchen facilities, and showers. 

Urban Care Stations

Hygiene, waste, and sanitation in the Portland metropolitan region is a broad and complex need for those experiencing homelessness, but it’s also a need in public spaces and during post-disaster recovery. Student researchers examined case studies around the world and identified seven needs: comprehensive amenities in an ADA accessible space, off-grid, collaboration and partnership, 24-hour service, flexible space, scalable and replicable, and monitored and evaluated. 

Indigenous Housing in Metro Areas: Leveraging Federal Block Grants for Urban Housing

The federal Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG) is typically prioritized for housing on reservations or tribal lands. However, the population of indigenous peoples living in metropolitan areas is growing. In Portland, the Nesika Illahee development, in part funded by an IHBG grant, is a case study in financing multi-family housing in urban areas with units prioritized for indigenous families, which continue to face homelessness at disproportionately higher rates. 

Homelessness Count Methodologies Literature Review

This literature review on homeless count methods provides a brief history of homelessness in the U.S., an account of count efforts, and an overview of methods used. It illustrates that no method is capable of providing a comprehensive count of the homeless, and all methods have inherent disadvantages that often rely upon flawed assumptions. The practical impact of these counts on policy is substantial. Therefore, this review should encourage discussion as to what data communities need for policy and program development and implementation, and whether homeless counts actually fulfill this need. 

Business Improvement Districts and Enhanced Service Districts

In an Enhanced Service District (ESD) property managers are required to pay a license fee, and the money from that license fee is used to fund extra security, marketing, and cleaning programs. ESDs patrol a huge chunk of Portland’s public space. Despite their significant role in managing public spaces, oversight for ESDs is very limited. The city government collects the assessed fees and gives it to the overseeing organizations to spend. There are no oversight measures for these organizations mandated by law.

Exploring Narratives and Concerns: Applied Linguistics in Homelessness Research

Understanding and addressing problematic narratives surrounding homelessness is one of the primary objectives of the Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative. We began to do this by mapping out different stakeholders and identifying texts such as social media posts, policy documents, and local news articles which reflect the language used by various groups to discuss and promote their concerns and beliefs about homelessness. Over 11,000 reports were analyzed.

Kenton Women’s Village Update and Survey

Homeless shelters can be chaotic and sometimes not much better than living on the streets. Sleeping pod villages, such as Kenton Women’s Village, provide opportunities for community development while still allowing privacy and security. The village model provides a more incremental transition into permanent housing from the streets rather than a sudden transition. This report provides an update on the village and results of a survey that explored physical health, mental health, demographic information, and level of satisfaction with village living.

Useful Waste

The Useful Waste Initiative is an alternative and more sustainable way of thinking about construction waste. It encourages material diversion and aims to reframe views on waste management during the design and construction process. It guides the process to repurpose and utilize an overlooked material resource- envelope construction mock-ups. It also provides the opportunity to contribute to and support efforts to address pressing social needs with local communities, including shelter for the homeless.

Collaborative Planning and Equity

Our research on collaborative planning and equity attempts to understand how collaborative planning and policy decisions are made, and to pinpoint where an equity lens might transform normative procedures into a practice of anti-oppression, agonism, and advocacy. Collaborative planning is a dominant theory in planning in which multiple stakeholders come together to deliberate on common concerns and apply consensus building and public participation methods to make policy decisions. The approach seeks to balance power among participants and increase public engagement.

Youth Homelessness

Youth experiencing homelessness face numerous challenges to maintaining their health while homeless and as they exit homelessness. This includes their physical health, mental health, and well-being. Further, research on the efficacy of various interventions that aim to positively impact the health of homeless youth is limited. The following paper summarizes what is currently understood about the health and well-being of youth experiencing homelessness and concludes with recommendations for interventions, prevention programs, and future research.

Familial Homelessness & Trauma

This review provides an overview of the relationship between familial homelessness and the following sources of trauma: domestic violence, substance use, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), mental health, and poverty. Following this review, stressors often experienced by homeless families (stigma, parenting while homeless, and child-specific) will be discussed. 

Annotated Bibliography: Homelessness and Policing, Mental Health, Sex Offenders, Race, Youth, and Gender

This work explores international and national studies on homelessness as it intersects with policing, mental health, sex offenders, race, youth and gender. The main focus is the criminalization of homelessness and the impact of policing and the criminal justice system on homelessness.