Fighting to Prevent Homelessness
Across America, service providers are doing great work to tackle the complexities of poverty, but there is little data to prove what’s working and why. Notre Dame's Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) helps service providers apply scientific evaluation methods to better understand and unleash effective poverty interventions.In 2012 Catholic Charities of Chicago approached LEO to assess its programming to determine if it was effectively keeping people off the streets. The problem, the charity explained, is that the success of call centers is often measured by the number of calls, rather than the number of people successfully kept in their homes. Could LEO researchers measure the call center’s effectiveness rather than volume?In 2016, Professor Bill Evans and his team found that people who received emergency funds from Catholic Charities were 76 percent less likely to become homeless, and to date, more than 700 families have been kept in their homes because of the program. This affirmative assessment proved the emergency grants were not just a temporary solution and were a cost-effective use of funds. Now other cities across the country are using Notre Dame’s work to inform their own strategies on homelessness prevention.Learn more: https://go.nd.edu/WWYFFHomelessness
More from What Would You Fight For?
- 2:07Fighting to Protect the InnocentThrough collaboration with the National Immigrant Justice Center, Notre Dame law students are able to participate in an NIJC externship program allowing them to work on asylum cases of immigrants entering the United States.Law School alumnae Stephanie Torres and Christina Shakour took on the case of Maria and Ariel, immigrants from El Salvador seeking a safer life after receiving threats of violence from gangs. The team worked up to 30 hours a week on top of their course work to help the family in need. In total, they filed more than 300 pages of documentation to prove that the family qualified for asylum. After hours of preparation, Shakour and Torres presented the case before Immigration Court and obtained asylum for Maria and Ariel in the United States.*Because the well-being of Maria's daughters is still in jeopardy in El Salvador, and because gang retaliation could still occur in the U.S., actors were used in this What Would You Fight For video.*
- 2:01Fighting to Explore the MoonIn the 40 years since Notre Dame professor Clive Neal started studying the Moon and its wonders, many discoveries have been made, boundaries pushed and technology improved. But now he’s focused on making sure the next 40 years hold ingenuity, growth and adventure when it comes to the Moon. And he’s going to find the scholars, explorers and researchers who keep the Moon firmly in their sights.