Evaluation of the Employment Initiative...

Evaluation of the Employment Initiative of the Corporation for Supportive Housing

Center Co-investigator: Kim Hopper, Ph.D., in collaboration with Debra Rog, Ph.D., Institute for Public Policy Studies, Vanderbilt University; Rebecca J. Lester, New York City; Kevin Roy, Chicago, and Christopher Davidson, San Francisco

PROJECT GOALS

In the spring of 1995, the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation to support an array of employment related programs in supportive housing projects in three cities (New York, Chicago, San Francisco). CSH has contracted with Center faculty member Kim Hopper, Ph.D., to design a qualitative data collection and analysis approach and to work in tandem with a team of quantitative researchers at Vanderbilt University headed by Debra Rog, Ph.D.

The overall objective of the CSH Employment Initiative is to explore the effects of work and work related activities on residents of supportive housing. These persons represent a diverse group of individuals, many of whom are coping with SMI, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS or other disabilities, who have been homeless in the recent past or are at high risk of becoming so in the near future. The Employment Initiative project will fund a range of work preparation, job development and support activities designed to "vocationalize" the residential environment and improve the employability of the tenants.

Formative and qualitative in design, the evaluations will document the implementation process and its effects on sponsoring organizations as well as on the everyday life of tenants. Subjects will be recruited by field researchers in as many as 10 sites distributed across the three cities. A modified ethnographic approach (directed by Dr. Hopper) will be used, combining extensive observation and unstructured interviewing with more formal assessments of clinical and residential history, to capture changes in quality of life, self confidence and motivation to work. Periodic feedback sessions will be staged with both project staff and tenants, during which provisional findings will be described and comments solicited. It is expected that a total of 36 tenants will be followed closely over a two-year period.

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES AND RESULTS

Formal presentation of the evaluation of the entire group of providers was followed by field visits to all three cities, selection of projects for close ethnographic tracking, and employment and training of three graduate students in anthropology/sociology. Fieldwork commenced in the spring of 1996 under close supervision of the principal investigator. The initial identification of themes for intensive exploration and identification of subjects for follow-up interviews and feedback sessions occurred in the summer of 1996. Fieldwork concluded in the summer of 1998.

Dr. Hopper supervised fieldwork activities of ethnographers in three intensively studied sites (New York City, San Francisco, Chicago). A total of 34 subjects have been selected for close ethnographic tracking. Two interim progress reports were prepared, critiqued by contractors and foundation sponsors, and redrafted for circulation among participating agencies. The varieties of workplace adjustments from legally mandated "reasonable accommodations," to remedial (or transitional) work sites designed to upgrade the skills of returning workers, to alternative workplaces for tenants unlikely ever to hold competitive jobs evident in the efforts by participating agencies is the subject of a second report, now is being circulated for comments.

PLANS

Documentation of great variation in "working pathways" of tenants reacting to employment provided the longitudinal hallmark of the ethnographic component of the evaluation. A final report is currently being drafted for submission to the Corporation for Supportive Housing and preparation of articles for publication in professional journals in under way. A proposal for extracting the ethnography at a clubhouse site in New York has been included as part of the Center's re-application portfolio.

Publications:

Rog, D., Holupka, C.S., Brito, M.C., Hopper, K., Davidson, C., Lester, R., Roy, K. Next Step: Jobs Interim Evaluation/Documentation Report. (revised), May 1997.

Lester, R., Roy, K., Davidson, C., Hopper, K. Supportive Housing, Workplace Adjustments, and the Dilemma of Difference, Draft ethnographic team report, June 1997.

Project Completed

Entered April 12, 1999

[Top]