HMIS data assists with newly released research on youth homelessness
Did you know that sometimes, HMIS is used to help understand program effectiveness?
Approximately 2,000 unaccompanied youth annually visit YouthLink, a nonprofit agency that is Minneapolis’ largest drop-in center for youth at risk of or experiencing homelessness. In Minnesota and across the U.S., we spend many millions of dollars on drop-in centers like YouthLink. Despite substantial social and fiscal costs of youth homelessness, little is known about the long-term impact of social services interventions.
Do drop-in centers work? Do they accomplish more than providing basic services such as meals, showers, and a respite from the street? Do they help youth find housing, advance their education, and stay out of the criminal justice system? Do they help advance our society’s goal to end homelessness and reduce costs for taxpayers?
This study used two approaches to examine YouthLink as an example of a drop-in and case management model for working with youth experiencing homelessness. These approaches investigated the same group of 1,229 unaccompanied youth, ages 16 to 24 and overwhelmingly Black, who voluntarily visited or received services from YouthLink in 2011. Both approaches looked at the same metrics of success over the same time period, 2011 to 2016. One approach— Study Aim 1—examined the drop-in and case management model overall, asking whether YouthLink’s service model resulted in better outcomes. It compared a YouthLink cohort with a group of highly similar youth who did not visit YouthLink but may have received similar services elsewhere. A second approach—Study Aim 2—investigated within the YouthLink cohort the ways in which YouthLink’s drop-in and case-management approach worked toward achieving the desired outcomes.
Results from each aim have important implications for public policy on addressing youth homelessness. First, the drop-in and case management model for youth experiencing homelessness, as implemented at YouthLink from 2011 to 2016, is effective for achieving desired long-term outcomes, particularly in the areas of housing and education. Second, the positive outcomes found in this study also resulted from significant case manager efforts. Overall, intense and topically focused efforts, together with encouragement of normative social behaviors, were effective at achieving desired outcomes in housing and education.
As seen on the infographic below, youth with more substantial relationships with case managers were:
4.2x more likely to use permanent housing and stay longer
1.7x more likely to graduate from high school
66% less likely to be convicted of a felony
Data Sources Used in Research:
YouthLink (MARRS)
Minnesota Department of Education
Minnesota Department of Human Services
State Court Administrators Office (SCAO), Office of Higher Education (OHE)
Hennepin County Shelter
Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) data included information on youth experiencing or at risk of homelessness who sought assistance via shelters, rental assistance, permanent housing, or street outreach programs (2000-2016). These data were used in the development of the Aim 1 comparison group, as statistical controls for potentially confounding variables in all analyses (i.e., length of homelessness), and as key 58 outcomes (i.e., shelter stays and use of permanent housing) of interest for analysis of Aims 1 and 2.
Infographic summary of the study findings
Attached you will find a research brief from the University of Minnesota with additional study details. These resources, and a white paper with complete research results, are available online at https://z.umn.edu/ml_youthhomelessness