“Housing Didn’t Solve Everything:” Perspectives of Housing and Long-Term Housing Outcomes of Participants in a Randomized Controlled Trial

Dr. Robert L. Fischer
Grace Longwell Coyle Professor in Civil Society
Director, Center on Poverty and Community Development
Chair, Master of Nonprofit Organizations Program
Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences
Case Western Reserve University

Family housing instability is closely linked to child welfare issues. This study employed a mixed-methods approach to examine the long-term housing outcomes and experiences of families in a randomized controlled trial (RCT), and how insights from treatment group participants, their case workers, and child welfare workers help to explain those outcomes. The authors used county-level administrative data (n = 273) to explore and compare program participants’ housing stability two years before the RCT, during the RCT, and two years after the RCT concluded. They explored treatment group participants’ housing experiences through 36 in-depth interviews with service providers and treatment group participants.

The quantitative results indicated that the treatment group had somewhat more housing stability compared to the control group, but the difference was not statistically significant. Qualitative thematic analysis revealed the overarching themes of (1) Factors Supporting Housing Stability & Resilience; (2) Challenges to Housing Stability, and (3) Housing Didn’t Solve Everything. They conclude that, although obtaining housing is a necessary foundation for families working through child welfare cases, it is inadequate to ensure long-term housing stability. Practitioners and policymakers must advocate for and address critical issues related to facilitating families’ housing stability over the long-term.

Robert L. Fischer is the Grace Longwell Coyle Professor in Civil Society at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences of Case Western Reserve University, where he leads a range of evaluation research studies and teaches evaluation methods to graduate students in social work and nonprofit management. He is also Co-Director of the The Center on Poverty and Community Development. Since 2001, he has led the Center’s research on Invest in Children, a county-wide early childhood initiative that includes home visiting, children’s health, and childcare components. Dr. Fischer is also faculty director of the Master of Nonprofit Organizations (MNO) degree program.