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?
- 2:01Fighting For Freedom of ThoughtWhen the Soviet Union collapsed, democracies in post-Soviet territories was fragile, and corruption ruled government, business and education. People were killed for speaking out and demanding justice. But there was a beacon of hope — Catholic universities. Because of their spirit of independence, these institutions could teach radical ideas like human dignity, freedom of speech, transparency and justice.Since 2003, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame has made a commitment to Catholic education in Eastern Europe bringing together administrators and faculty at seven universities to build bridges that will help them speak truth to power.Learn more: https://ntrda.me/FreedomofThought
- 2:03Fighting to Protect Our CountrySince 1993, the International Atomic Energy Agency has tracked 2,500 trafficking cases of nuclear material. While there has yet to be a detonation of a dirty bomb, the threat remains present. In the unlikely event of a nuclear attack on American soil, Notre Dame engineering professor Antonio Simonetti makes one thing clear: The perpetrator could and would be found.Simonetti is a geochemist who specializes in characterizing the chemical and isotopic composition of materials. Traditionally, that involves studying rocks and minerals, which Simonetti did for many years. In 2011 he pivoted to assess nuclear materials like trinitite at the request of National Nuclear Security Agency. In that role, he used laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to study blast melt from the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico in 1945 and precisely identified where remnants of plutonium fuel resided after the explosion.More: http://ntrda.me/FTProtectOurCountry
- 2:08Fighting Mosquito-borne Diseases
- 2:01Fighting to End PovertyIn Dandora, Kenya, a sprawling neighborhood in Nairobi, housing for 250,000 people is built around the city’s largest dumpsite. Life near a large trash heap exposes the population to problems ranging from illness to unemployment to extreme poverty.Many of the town’s residents spend their days wading in the trash, looking for bits of aluminum and plastic that they can exchange for a few dollars to support their family. Others, typically women, run roadside stands selling goods like fruit or medications. For many families, the profits from these microenterprises are the only way to put food on the table or to send children to school.Notre Dame and its Ford Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity have been invested in Dandora for several years. Research projects and a Holy Cross parish have taken root. In speaking with the local population about their needs, the Ford Program asked a trio of Notre Dame economists — Wyatt Brooks, Kevin Donovan and Terry Johnson — to come to Dandora to explore problems surrounding unemployment.For more information: http://ntrda.me/FFEndPoverty
- 2:01Fighting for the Lives of ChildrenWhen your child is diagnosed with a rare, genetic disease, it feels like you’re rolling down a mountain, just waiting to hit rock bottom, says Doug Berns. When his daughter, Samantha, was diagnosed with Niemann-Pick Type C, an incurable, neurodegenerative disorder, he and his wife watched as Samantha’s energy depleted, her balance became shaky, and her laughter quieted.At Notre Dame, researchers in the Boler-Parseghian Center for Rare and Neglected Diseases seek to identify and advance treatments for a number of rare diseases, including Niemann-Pick Type C.For more information: http://ntrda.me/LivesofChildren
- 2:01Fighting to Walk AgainPerhaps no greater motivation exists in this world than hope. For the 450,000 Americans with spinal cord injuries, the hope that they can regain mobility, walk again, run again is often what pushes them through each therapy session. But those same patients often plateau in their recovery, and hope dwindles.Though he’s not a physician or physical therapist, Notre Dame engineering professor Jim Schmiedeler’s work may contribute to better success for these patients. In his locomotion and biomechanics lab, he uses tools from his biped robotics research to better understand the challenges spinal cord injuries present for those learning to walk again. By partnering with researchers at The Ohio State University, Schmiedeler can also test how lessons learned from experiments with the robots, which involve no risk to humans, can be translated into innovative therapeutic strategies that benefit patients. In doing so, he believes his work can help many of those individuals with a spinal cord injury to walk again.Read More: http://ntrda.me/WalkAgain
