The University of Pennsylvania and the Office of the Governor of Pennsylvania will build a partnership to address youth homelessness, which often leads to poor education, economic, and health outcomes and disproportionately affects Black and Latinx youth. The partnership will analyze both existing and proposed state policies and programs designed to create an evidence-informed policy menu of local and state programs that have demonstrated effectiveness in reducing child and youth homelessness. The partnership’s first study will use a regression discontinuity design to examine the overall effect of tripling the amount of Pennsylvania’s Child and Dependent Care Enhancement Tax Credit and the marginal effect of one additional child eligible for the credit on child and youth homelessness. The partnership will build the capacity for research use in the Governor’s office by boosting short-term research capacity related to homelessness and emerging issues and by developing the data infrastructure for current and future research projects. Institutional change at the university will include formalizing secure data use agreements with the Governor’s Office to facilitate additional partnerships between faculty and the state, developing programming and guidebooks for faculty interested in partnership research, and laying the groundwork to develop a curriculum and create seed funding for researchers interested in policy partnerships with the state.
This grant will strengthen the partnership between the University of Pennsylvania and the Office of the Governor of Pennsylvania.
