Announcing our newest portfolio: Building evidence to help support the prevention of homelessness and housing instability
 Over the course of a typical year, more than a million individuals and families in the United States experience homelessness, and many more experience housing instability. This stems from decades of growing economic inequality, increasing housing costs, and housing supply shortfalls, which were exacerbated by a global pandemic. Several federal agencies support the use of evidence-based practices to prevent and end homelessness through programs that provide support services and assistance with rent, utilities, and other housing-related costs. We’ve worked with various agencies on evaluations related to housing insecurity and home energy costs.
Together, these evaluations provide a strong evidence base for the use of proxy data to streamline program access and reduce administrative burden and also suggest that targeted outreach can have mixed results in increasing the uptake of housing assistance programs or changing household behavior.
Recent results
Evaluation: Decreasing opt out from text messages about benefit programs
Agency partner: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
HHS’s Administration for Children and Families and Minnesota’s Department of Human Services (MN DHS) used text messages to send eligible child care providers information about their Child Care Stabilization Base Grant program. MN DHS sought ways to increase the share of providers who continued to receive messages so they could keep providers informed of priority program updates. We randomized child care providers to receive either a message that simply notified them that they were enrolled in a text message program (“standard message”) or a message that explained why they were enrolled in the text message program (“transparent message”). We saw low opt out rates overall and no difference in opt-out rates between the standard and transparent default message groups, though only a third of the text messages sent were successfully delivered.
Evaluation: Decreasing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) denials due to incomplete information
Agency partner: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
USDA administers SNAP, which provides food assistance to over 42 million people annually. Code for America collaborated with a large southern state to create an easy-to-use, mobile-friendly, web-based document uploader to make it easier for applicants to submit verification documents to SNAP. In our evaluation of their uploader, we found that texts including a link to the redesigned document uploader resulted in fewer applicants being denied SNAP benefits due to incomplete eligibility information by 1.1 percentage points. However, the intervention did not have a meaningful impact on SNAP enrollment.
Recent media featuring OES
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA): The 2024 Burden Reduction Report, “Tackling the Time Tax: Making Important Government Benefits and Programs Easier to Access,” summarizes initiatives across all of government. It features OES evaluations with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of the Treasury on improving outreach to eligible populations, lowering barriers to applying for assistance, and streamlining processes associated with applying for and maintaining eligibility for American Rescue Plan-funded programs.
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