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- All Subjects: homelessness
- All Subjects: Social Impact Bonds
- Creators: Lucio, Joanna
Description
Social impact bonds (SIBs) are a multi-year contract between social service providers, the government, and private investors. The three parties agree on a specific outcome for a societal issue. Investors provide capital required for the service provider to operate the project. The service provider then delivers the service to the target population. The success of the project is evaluated by outside party. If the target outcome is met, the government repays the investors at a premium. Nonprofit service providers can only serve a small community as they lack the funding to scale their programs and their reliance on government funding and philanthropy leads to a lot of time focused on raising money in the short-term and inhibits them from evolving their programs and projects for long-term strategic success. Government budgets decline but social problems persist. These contracts share risk between the government and the investors and allow governments to test out programs and alleviate taxpayer burdens from unsuccessful social service programs. Arizona has a severe homelessness problem. Nightly, 6000 people are homeless in Maricopa County. In a given year, over 32,000 individuals were homeless, composed of single adults, families, children, and veterans. Homelessness is not only a debilitating and difficult experience for those who experience it, but also has considerable economic costs on society. Homeless individuals use a number of government programs beyond emergency shelters, and these can cost taxpayers billions of dollars per year. Rapid rehousing was a successful intervention model that the state has been heavily investing in the last few years. This thesis aimed to survey the Arizona climate and determine what barriers were present for enacting an SIB for homelessness. The findings showed that although there are many competent stakeholder groups, lack of interest and overall knowledge of SIBs prevented groups from taking responsibility as the anchor for such a project. Additionally, the government and nonprofits had good partnerships, but lacked relationships with the business community and investors that could propel an SIB. Finally, although rapid rehousing can be used as a successful intervention model, there are not enough years of proven success to justify the spending on an SIB. Additionally, data collection for homelessness programming needs to be standardized between all relevant partners. The framework for an SIB exists in Arizona, but needs a few more years of development before it can be considered.
ContributorsAhmed, Fabeeha (Author) / Desouza, Kevin (Thesis director) / Lucio, Joanna (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
"Improving Life Outcomes for Children in Arizona: Educational Social Impact Bond" is a creative project that is structured as a pitch to the Arizona Department of Education to consider social impact bonds as a way to fund pilot education programs. The pitch begins with a brief overview of the umbrella of impact investing, and then a focus on social impact bonds, an area of impact investing. A profile of Arizona's current educational rankings along with statistics are then presented, highlighting the need for an educational social impact bond to help increase achievement. The pitch then starts to focus particularly on high school drop outs and how by funding early childhood education the chances of a child graduating high school increase. An overview of existing early education social impact bonds that are enacted are then presented, followed by a possible structure for an early education social impact bond in Arizona. An analysis of the possible lifetime cost savings of investing in early childhood education are then presented, that are as a result of decreasing the amount of high school drop outs. Lastly, is a brief side-by-side comparison of the Arizona structure to the precedent social impact bonds.
ContributorsRodriguez, Karina (Author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Trujillo, Gary (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This thesis examines Care Not Cash, a welfare reform measure that replaced traditional cash General Assistance program payments for homeless persons in San Francisco with in-kind social services. Unlike most welfare reform measures, proponents framed Care Not Cash as a progressive policy, aimed at expanding social services and government care for this vulnerable population. Drawing on primary and secondary documents, as well as interviews with homelessness policy experts, this thesis examines the historical and political success of Care Not Cash, and explores the potential need for implementation of a similar program in Phoenix, Arizona.
ContributorsMcCutcheon, Zachary Ryan (Author) / Lucio, Joanna (Thesis director) / Williams, David (Committee member) / Bretts-Jamison, Jake (Committee member) / School of Public Affairs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Law enforcement officers are frequently tasked with addressing and responding to public safety and community concerns related to issues of homelessness. While interactions between law enforcement and individuals experiencing homelessness occur frequently, issues of homelessness also span public health, policy, and housing spheres. Because of this, several communities in the United States also lean on outreach workers to address issues of homelessness. Recent research has described both law enforcement officers and outreach workers as street-level bureaucrats. Both groups grapple with unique shift demands, lack of supervision, burnout, and issues such as turnover, all while leveraging their personal knowledge and connections to make decisions on a case-by- case basis.In two studies, this dissertation explores the role of the police and outreach workers in responses to issues of homelessness. This is important to address because there is evidence that these two groups have a high degree of contact with individuals experience homelessness and have similar decision-making processes. Yet, they are largely siloed from one another making it difficult to generate policies related to issues of homelessness that are informed by both groups. In study one, responses to close- and open-ended responses (N = 1,163) drawn from a survey distributed to law enforcement personnel are analyzed, merged, and interpreted. The second study of this dissertation is an ethnography of outreach workers in Maricopa County, Arizona. The collective findings from these two studies underscore a remarkable similarity between outreach worker and law enforcement decision making, as well as a growing need to strengthen the relationships between these two groups to support longer-term solutions. Co-created training guides and events can be constructed to enhance the relationship between these two groups and to support mutually beneficial outcomes.
Portions of this research were supported by a Law and Science Dissertation Grant, via the National Science Foundation, award SES-2016661 to Arizona State University. This project was also supported by Arizona State University’s Graduate College and Graduate Student and Professional Association’s Graduate Research Program Award. The findings and conclusions are those of the author and do not reflect the position of the National Science Foundation or Arizona State University.
ContributorsBrown, Katharine L (Author) / Telep, Cody W (Thesis advisor) / Lucio, Joanna (Committee member) / Young, Jacob Tn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023