No Place Like Home: A Study of the Contextual Factors Shaping Experiences of Student Homelessness and the Effects of Affordable Housing Development on Homeless and Mobile Students

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

No Place Like Home: A Study of the Contextual Factors Shaping Experiences of Student Homelessness and the Effects of Affordable Housing Development on Homeless and Mobile Students

Many of the education and housing policies in place have not evolved to deal with recent increases in student homelessness. With a nascent research base documenting the experiences of K-12 homeless students, education and social service leaders are provided with little guidance on what to do next. This dissertation will advance the research base by deepening our understanding of how schools, neighborhoods, and affordable housing programs factor into the relationship between homelessness and student outcomes. I describe two studies in my dissertation that contextualize the experience of homeless students and the efficacy of current supports. In the first study, I ask: how do schools and neighborhoods moderate the relationship between homelessness and academic and behavioral outcomes? To answer this question, I estimate a fixed-effects model using a restricted-student level state administrative dataset from Michigan and publicly available sources. In the second study, I examine the effects of the federal government’s largest affordable housing program, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, and ask: how does the development of affordable housing via LIHTC affect student homelessness, mobility, and attendance? I leverage a discontinuity in the LIHTC funding formula and administrative educational data from Michigan, along with publicly available data, to estimate the causal effects of this program on student homelessness and mobility. These papers offer much needed evidence on the nuanced and contextualized experiences of homelessness and evaluate whether existing housing policies reduce homelessness and mobility in the K-12 student population.

Author

• Tasminda Dhaliwal, Michigan State University