The Impact of Homeless Prevention on Residential Instability: Evidence From the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program

ABSTRACT

Millions of individuals and families in the United States do not have access to stable housing. Recent policies in the United States and the rest of the developed world emphasize programs intended to prevent homelessness through temporary financial assistance. This article explores the impact of the largest homelessness prevention program in U.S. history, the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP), on residential instability, using a national sample of families with children enrolled in school. The identification strategy exploits variations on the location of HPRP providers. Using data on the ratio of K–12 students experiencing homelessness in school districts, we find that HPRP is associated with reductions in the percentage of homeless students for districts closer to an HPRP provider. However, the impacts of HPRP fade out when program benefits end, bringing into question whether homeless prevention can help families achieve self-sufficiency in the long run.     

Compassion as a Political Virtue

The place of compassion in political thought and practice is debatable. This debate can be clarified by stipulating 'compassion' as referring to the practice of acting on the feeling of 'pity'; in addition, compassion might best be understood politically speaking as properly exercised towards vulnerability rather than suffering . Working with these understandings, I contrast Martha Nussbaum's account of the criteria for the exercise of compassion in modern democracies with the treatment of compassion in Toni Morrison's novels in order to suggest how compassion can be viewed politically. In respect of distributive justice and public policy, in both cases compassion might modify the strict application of principles in the light of knowledge of particulars, suggesting an enlarged role for discretion in the implementation of social justice. More generally, compassion's focus on particulars and the interpersonal draws attention to the importance of imagination and judgement. The latter returns a consideration of compassion to the question of the relationship of compassion to justice. In the political context, although strict criteria for compassion are inappropriate, principles of justice might work as modifying compassion (rather than vice-versa, as might be expected).     

Patterns of physical and sexual abuse for men and women in dating relationships: A descriptive analysis

A random sample of students at a large Midwestern University was selected in order to examine whether and how physical and sexual abuse were related to each other for men and women, whether abuse in one relationship was independent of abuse in other relationships, and how victims responded to abusive incidents. The results revealed several important patterns. When comparing the frequency of physical and sexual abuse for men and women, it was found that sexual abuse was more common than physical abuse, but only for women. Additionally, women experienced more sexual abuse than men. While men and women did not experience physical abuse in other relationships at more than chance levels, women who sustained sexual abuse in one relationship were more likely to sustain sexual abuse in other relationships. Furthermore, while sustaining physical and sexual abuse were not associated with one another for men, there was a weak association for women. Finally, victims of abuse were more likely to tell their friends they had been abused than report it to criminal justice authorities.Paper presented at the 1987 American Society of Criminology Meetings.     

Development of the femur--implications for age and sex determination

Growth of four variables of the femur (diapyseal length, diaphyseal length plus distal epiphysis, maximum length and vertical diameter of the head) was analyzed by polynomial regression for the purpose of evaluating its significance and capacity for age and sex determination throughout the entire life continuum. Materials included in analysis consisted of 346 specimens ranging from birth to 97 years of age from five documented osteological collections of Western European descent. Linear growth was displayed by each of the four variables. Significant sexual dimorphism was identified in two of the femoral measurements, including maximum length and vertical diameter of the head, from age 15 onward. These results indicate that the two variables may be of use in the determination of sex in sex determination from that age onward. Strong correlation coefficients were identified between femoral size and age for each of the four metric variables. These results indicate that any of the femoral measurements is likely to serve as a useful source to estimate sub-adult age in both archaeological and forensic samples.     

Critical Incidents in emergency relief work

The ethos of technical assistance in emergency relief work has emphasised the importance of recruiting people with appropriate professional and technical skills to work under the difficult circumstances of disasters. The authors used the Critical Incident Technique to assess jobrelated skills that were seen to be crucial for the achievement of the objectives towards which emergency relief personnel were working. Fifteen Irish nurses, working predominantly in refugee camps, identified over 60 different work objectives and 54 distinct job-related skills. It is argued that greater account should be taken of the variety of objectives which motivates such fieldworkers. The job-related skills identified were primarily process- rather than outcome-oriented skills, and the authors hold that a greater emphasis should be placed on the development of fluid as opposed to crystallised skills. The possibilities of using the Critical Incident Technique as a mechanism for feeding back authentic field experience and operationalising effective process skills are discussed.