Strategies for homeless research in the 1990s

Abstract

Existing empirically based knowledge about homelessness is neither extensive nor well grounded. Proper policy formation and program design that address homelessness are badly served by knowledge deficiencies. This paper lays out a strategy that will develop appropriate research methodology and generate better empirically based knowledge. It proposes a program of technical research, as well as moditica‐tions to several national data collection programs, such as the Current Population Survey, to collect data on the literal homeless and the precariously housed. It also presents a rationale for starting longitudinal studies that focus on the processes that lead into and out of the homeless state. Finally, it proposes evaluation research to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of promising programs.     

Federal homeless information needs and local practice

Abstract

What would be required to produce a national homeless needs assessment? Information on the size and characteristics of the homeless population, evaluations of the effectiveness of interventions, and evaluations of the program and financial resources available nationwide would play pivotal roles in developing a comprehensive assessment. Estimates of the size of the homeless population are far less useful than evaluations of treatment and program delivery. There is no reason to focus attention on counts of the homeless nationwide.

Much more needs to be done to evaluate the capacity of the nation's program delivery system and to estimate the level and type of financial resources that flow into this sector. These same considerations apply to possible changes in what information the federal government will require of localities if the McKinney Act is shifted to a block grant. Evaluative assessments, including assessments of the barriers to serving the homeless, would prove to be of greater value at the local and federal levels than an emphasis on counts. Nevertheless, there is an argument for requiring a periodic local reporting of numbers and characteristics among the sheltered population under a new block grant.     

Protecting Local Governments from Arbitrary State and Federal Interference: What Prospects for the 1990s?

The number of local governments in Nigeria has been fixed at453 by the 1989 Constitution. The key purpose of this provisionis to prevent state governments from creating local governmentsand altering local-government boundaries for political purposes.The provision is part of a larger program of localgovernmentreform undertaken by the federal military government to ensurethe integrity and autonomy of democratically elected local governmentsunder the Third Republic. States are limited in their abilityto intervene in local government affairs, and the federal governmenthas certain direct powers and responsibilities for local governments.Whether these reforms will achieve their intended objectives,however, is arguable.     

Changes in living arrangements during the late 1990s: Do welfare policies matter?

Using data from the 1997 and 1999 National Surveys of America's Families, the authors examine the consequences of state welfare policies and practices on the living arrangements of low‐income families with children. Results from a multivariate difference‐in‐difference‐in‐differences model suggest that more effective collection of child support and family cap policies are correlated with declines in single parenting and increases in dual parenting. Other policies such as sanctions and special restrictions that apply to two‐parent families have no clear, consistent association with living arrangements. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The feasibility of social policies

The notion that, given sufficient ingenuity and resources, any social problem can be solved, in a manner consistent with the announced policy objectives and with the accepted institutional framework, has been a major source of failures and frustrations. This paper suggests that policy analysis should concentrate on the investigation of the conditions of feasibility of public programs. Feasibility is defined in terms of all the relevant constraints: social, political, administrative, and institutional, as well as technical and economic. The emphasis on the pure logic of choice and optimal decision rules, so characteristic of normative theorizing in decision theory, management science, and welfare economics, has tended to obscure the fact that in the field of social policies, the range of feasible choices is severely limited by a variety of constraints. Most bad decisions are not just suboptimal; on closer examination, it usually turns out that they were not even feasible at the time they were made. Only by understanding the reasons why, under certain circumstances, a given goal cannot be achieved, can we hope to gain better knowledge about the working of social institutions. Just as the essence of the scientific method is the critical analysis and refutation of proposed theories, rather than the accumulation of evidence in favor of pet solutions, so the most important task of policy analysis consists in submitting plans and objectives to the most stringent tests of feasibility. Also in analytic case studies, the search for constraints that were ignored by the decisionmakers has considerable heuristic value, as I try to demonstrate with a critical discussion of some aspects of the British National Health Service.Paper presented at the Workshop on Models and Cases in Administration Decision Making, Joint Sessions of Workshops of the European Consortium for Political Research, Strasbourg, France, March 28–April 2, 1974.     

Budgeting for Accountability: Municipal Budgeting for the 1990s

The emphasis of a public budget depends on the time and circumstances in which it is developed. During the 1990s, for example, the emphasis has increasingly been on accountability due to widespread public belief in recent years that government is uncontrollable and responds only to special interests. Over the past few years, local budgeters have begun to adapt to this new environment by improving the accountability of the budget to the public. This article summarizes some of the changes taking place and suggests some additional changes that could be adopted to make local budgeting more accountable.     

Harmonization of social policies and social regulation in the European Community

Abstract. The development of the European Community entails harmonization of policies in many areas. This paper analyses to what extent harmonization has taken place in the traditional fields of social policy. Interventions by the EC authorities in the social policy area, here termed direct harmonization, are examined. Indirect harmonization, resulting from common economic policies and the internationalization of the economy, is used as a key concept in an empirical study of the development of coverage, benefit levels and methods of financing in the main social insurance systems within the EC countries, since 1955. The corresponding development in the EFTA countries is here used as a baseline for comparison. The results are discussed in light of the thesis that also in the social field EC policies may fruitfully be interpreted in terms of the EC's main objective of economic integration. Some criteria for the consideration of future developments are suggested.     

Financing the German Federal System in the 1980s

Public finance is a crucial issue in any federation. In thesystem of shared public financing in Germany, no unit of governmentis fiscally dependent on the other. The federal and Land governmentsshare the personal income tax, the corporation tax, and thevalue-added sales tax. Because the Bundesrat approves of theshares of these tax yields granted the federal and Land governments,the Länder are deeply involved in the public finance system.Fiscal equalization occurs both vertically and horizontally.The federal government provides the Länder with grants-in-aid,and also shares the financing of a number of "joint tasks."The Länder share their tax yields with their local governments.Fiscal transfers also take place among the richer and poorerLänder and among the municipalities within the boundariesof individual counties. Controversy exists over the shares tobe given the respective governments from the value-added taxand over fiscal equalization between the richer (South) andpoorer (North) Länder.     

Water and Federalism in the 1990s

Federalism has always been an issue in water management. Thephasing out of grants for the construction of sewage treatmentplants, the reduction of the federal contribution for constructionof water development projects, the decrease in federal expendituresfor basic water data collection, and the lack of federal fundsfor state dam-safety programs have all had an impact on watermanagement and intergovernmental relations. This article summarizescontemporary issues in intergovernmental relations and waterpolicy. First, the relationship between water, environmentalprotection, and federalism is examined. Then, the shifting financialresponsibility for water pollution control from the federalto state and local governments is reviewed.     

Whitehall and the Refugees: The 1930s and the 1990s

Abstract

In this paper, originally presented on the occasion of the launch of her book concerning British immigration policy towards Jewish refugees from 1933 to 1948, London compares that past with present British immigration policy and attitudes towards it. She argues, above all, that the same worry about the long-term effects of immigration—that is, that refugees would settle in the country and not return home or move on—that very much influenced the tendency to inhibit aid to Jewish refugees in the 1930s and 1940s, is still very much alive today. While the legal situation of refugees and the kinds of persecution from which they seek refuge are different in the two periods in question, the 1930s and the 1990s—there are now, for instance, international conventions on refugees to which Britain is a signatory—British immigration policies of both periods are marked by many of the same priorities and many of the same attitudes towards and perceptions of refugees. In closing, she sounds a warning that an understanding of the past, crucial as it is, should not be mistakenly used to justify a lack of humanity in the present.     

State Item-Veto Legal Issues in the 1990s

During the 1990s, legal issues arising from governors exercising their item-veto powers were prevalent. These issues arose despite the fact that in most instances, state constitutions grant these powers to governors. Also, legal issues were prevalent, even though these powers had been exercised for decades; one might have expected that most legal issues would have been resolved long before the 1990s. Topics in court included standing, advisory opinions, definitions of 'appropriation' and 'item,' reasons used by governors in exercising the veto power, post-adjournment vetoes, and labor relations in conjunction with item-vetoes that affect personnel. The item-veto cases need to be considered in the broader context of state government, which encompasses such topics as initiatives and referenda, biennial budgeting, school desegregation mandates by courts, and balanced budget requirements. No single topic dominated litigation in the 1990s, but instead a breadth of topics was evident.     

Counting homeless persons with surveys of users of services for the homeless

Abstract

Because of their comparative economy, the most commonly used methods for counting the homeless focus on users of shelters, food lines, health clinics for the homeless, and other services for the homeless. This paper argues that surveys restricted to shelter users are of limited usefulness, but that joint surveys of food‐line, shelter, and clinic users include very substantial proportions of the homeless in many communities. Such comprehensive surveys can provide an accurate basis for research on the homeless in communities with reasonably capacious service systems. The reliability of such surveys has grown as service systems for the homeless have improved. Groups of the homeless that tend to be missed in service user surveys include homeless youths on their own as well as substantial portions of the rural homeless population and of the doubled‐up or institutionalized homeless populations. Surveys of homeless persons sleeping in known places “on the streets” can be used to supplement surveys of service users. Research in Colorado suggests that such supplemental surveys of the street population provide a practical basis for comprehensive estimates of the homeless street population.     

Financing growth in the 1990s: New challenges for OECS countries

This article argues that the world as we know it is becoming increasingly integrated and that the traditional providers of foreign assistance for infrastructure and other purposes, are about to increase the demand that poorer nations like the OECS countries must do more for themselves during the process of social development. The article admits that poorer countries like the OECS have developed revenue raising structures that facilitate indigenous development but the post-Cold War reality intensifies the need for countries like the OECS to do more for themselves than ever before. The reasons for this occurrence have been stated largely as being attributed to financial, economic, attitudinal changes in major industrial countries, particularly in North America. These changes suggest difficult limes for industrial countries in the future and are likely to have serious impacts on countries like the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). The article offers a specific approach to dealing with this anticipated demand from donor countries to do more for themselves. The author advocates the following: (1) expand the existing revenue structure of the OECS countries to include specific revenue instruments to finance new growth and development in these countries; (2) broaden the concept and practice of ‘pay-as-you-go’ to ‘pay-as-you-grow;’ (3) require new growth to pay its own way or at a minimum, to shoulder a large proportion of the cost; (4) let those who primarily benefit from new growth pay for it. ‘Impact’ or ‘development’ fees have been suggested to be a new method of financing growth, particularly in countries that are experiencing new levels of growth. The author argues that this method will not be unusual to developers-foreign investors from North America, or OECS nationals who may be returning temporarily or otherwise to their home country. This discussion on pay-as-you-grow, it is hoped, will contribute to the growing literature on Caribbean public finance.