Evaluating Maryland's Homeless Solutions Program Outcomes
This paper presents an outcome-based evaluation of Maryland's Homeless Solutions Program (HSP), which was consolidated under the Department of Housing and Community Development in 2017. The evaluation pursues three objectives: assessing the HSP's contribution to reduced homelessness statewide, determining whether participation improves financial literacy knowledge, and examining whether participation leads to better mental health outcomes. Using a pre-post interventional research design and a mixed-methods approach, the study combines quantitative data from document reviews and PHQ-9 surveys with qualitative interview data collected across three HSP-funded crisis shelters. Results are analyzed using ANOVA, chi-square tests, and thematic coding to measure change over time.
- Introduction and Evaluation Objectives: Three objectives and key variables introduced
- Research Design and Sample Selection: Pre-post design, shelter selection, and sampling
- Assessing Homelessness Reduction: Data and Methods: Document review and ANOVA for housing stability
- Measuring Mental Health Outcomes with the PHQ-9: PHQ-9 survey administered at three time points
- Evaluating Financial Literacy Through Qualitative Interviews: Interview guide and thematic coding approach
- Conclusion: Mixed-methods evaluation contribution summarized
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper clearly aligns each evaluation objective with a specific data collection method and analytical technique, making the methodology transparent and logically coherent.
- It appropriately distinguishes between quantitative and qualitative approaches for different research questions, demonstrating methodological awareness suited to a mixed-methods design.
- The paper attends to practical rigor by detailing sampling criteria, eligibility requirements, consent procedures, and comparison panels, showing attention to both internal validity and ethical standards.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the effective application of a pre-post interventional research design within a program evaluation context. By specifying baseline and follow-up measurement points (start, three months, and six months), and by using 2017 as a natural policy intervention cutoff for homelessness data, the author shows how quasi-experimental logic can be applied to real-world social program assessment without a randomized control group.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by framing the evaluation's three core objectives and defining the relevant variables. It then justifies the pre-post research design before describing sampling procedures and ethical safeguards. Three subsequent sections address each objective in turn, specifying data sources, instruments (such as the PHQ-9 and interview guides), and analytic techniques (ANOVA, chi-square, and thematic coding). A brief conclusion synthesizes the evaluation's expected contribution to the literature.
Introduction and Evaluation Objectives
This paper presents an outcome-based evaluation designed to assess Maryland's Homeless Solutions Program's (HSP) effectiveness in realizing its intended objectives (Schalock, 2013). The HSP's concept map indicates that the program seeks to reduce the number of homeless people in the state, increase participants' awareness about financial literacy, and expand participants' access to mental health professionals. This evaluation pursues three objectives: to assess whether the HSP has effectively contributed to reduced homelessness in the state of Maryland, to determine whether participation in the program increases knowledge about financial literacy, and to determine whether participation results in improved mental health for participants.
The variables of interest for the first objective are homelessness rates and the number of HSP program beneficiaries who have managed to secure and maintain stable housing. The variables of interest for the second objective are knowledge about budgeting, borrowing, saving, and investing (Dewi et al., 2020). More specifically, the evaluation seeks to determine whether the number of homeless people in Maryland has declined as a result of the HSP, whether participants report improved mental health, and whether program participants are more knowledgeable about budgeting, borrowing, saving, and investing as a result of taking part in the program.
Research Design and Sample Selection
To realize its objectives, the evaluation adopts a pre-post interventional research design, which involves measuring variables of interest before and after an intervention in the same group of participants (Aggarwal & Ranganathan, 2019). The basic premise of the pre- and post-test design is that a variable of interest is measured before an intervention is administered and again afterward, allowing the evaluator to observe trends and measure the extent of change at different points in time (Aggarwal & Ranganathan, 2019). The pre-post design is particularly appropriate for studying changes in knowledge and mental health status, as it provides a means to compare where a participant starts with where they end. It is also well suited to assessing how participants' mental health status and knowledge and attitudes about financial literacy change over time as a result of taking part in the HSP. Furthermore, the design allows for a comparison of homelessness levels before and after the HSP's launch to determine whether the program has been effective in reducing homelessness statewide.
The HSP commits to reducing homelessness by providing funding and other technical support to continua of care in order to support homeless service programs and shelters in local communities. To assess the program's effectiveness, the evaluators will select three homeless crisis shelter homes that have benefited from HSP funding over the past three years to take part in the study. To ensure comparability among shelter homes, the evaluators will only consider homes that have been in existence for between five and ten years, are of comparable size in terms of beneficiary numbers, and rely on the HSP as their only source of funding. This will eliminate the effect of other contextual and organizational factors that could affect participant outcomes. The three homes will be selected conveniently based on their proximity to the evaluator to reduce costs.
Upon obtaining the relevant approvals to carry out the study, the evaluator will select ten participants from each home who were admitted into the facility within the past month. To ensure gender balance, five of the participants will be male and five will be female. The participants will be selected randomly from the enrollment registers provided by the homes. They will be engaged in a meeting to explain the objectives of the evaluation and informed that their participation is voluntary and that they may withdraw at any time. No coercion will be applied; participants will be required to indicate their consent by signing consent forms. To be eligible, participants must be aged eighteen or older and able to communicate in English, as the evaluation will be conducted in English only.
Assessing Homelessness Reduction: Data and Methods
The evaluation will collect both qualitative and quantitative data. Quantitative data will be used to analyze the first and third objectives, while qualitative data will be used for the second objective. For the first objective — which assesses how well the HSP helps participants secure and maintain stable housing — quantitative data will be collected through document review. At the state level, the program will be evaluated by comparing homelessness rates before and after 2017, when the HSP began. The HSP was implemented in Maryland in 2017 following the passage of legislation that consolidated the state's homelessness programs into a single program under the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (Luell, 2020). Data on homelessness rates will be obtained by reviewing annual reports on homelessness prepared each year by the Maryland Interagency Council on Homelessness for the governor and the state general assembly.
At the individual shelter level, the requirement that eligible shelter houses must have been in existence for between five and ten years will provide a means to make comparisons using 2017 as the base year. Annual data on the proportion of beneficiaries who secured and maintained stable homes before HSP funding began in 2017 will be compared with data from after 2017. Data from 2017 and earlier will be organized into one panel, while post-2017 data will be organized into a second panel; the two will then be compared to determine whether any significant differences exist. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be used to determine whether there are significant differences in the means of the two panels, after which post-hoc tests will be conducted to identify where the differences lie (Shim & Siegel, 2008). The data will be obtained by reviewing enrollment records, annual reports, and individual beneficiary files. Data from before 2017 will be regarded as pre-intervention data, while data from after 2017 will be treated as post-test data.
Conclusion
This evaluation seeks to assess how well the HSP reduces homelessness rates in the state, improves participants' mental health status, and increases financial literacy levels among participants. Using a mixed-methods approach, the evaluation will contribute to the existing literature by demonstrating whether the HSP has been successful in realizing its intended outcomes.
References
Aggarwal, R., & Ranganathan, P. (2019). Study designs: Part 4 – interventional studies. Perspectives in Clinical Research, 10(3), 137–39.
Dewi, V. I., Febrian, E., Effendi, N., Anwar, A., & Nidar, S. (2020). Financial literacy and its variables: The evidence from Indonesia. Economics and Sociology, 13(3), 133–54.
Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R., & Williams, W. (2001). The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) scoring. JGIM, 16(1), 606–16.
Luell, S. (2020). Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development Homelessness Solutions – Homelessness rate reduction and Covid-19 response. NCSHA. https://www.ncsha.org/wp-content/uploads/Maryland-Special-Needs-Housing-Combating-Homelessness-2020.pdf
Schalock, R. L. (2013). Outcome-based evaluation. Springer Science & Business Media.
Shim, J. K., & Siegel, J. (2008). Budgeting basics and beyond (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
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