Paint by Number: A Picture of Homelessness in the City of Boston by Maia Woluchem B.S. Economics University of Pittsburgh, 2013 SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER IN CITY PLANNING AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY JUNE 2019 ©2019 Maia Woluchem. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created. Signature of Author:____________________________________________________________ Department of Urban Studies and Planning May 23, 2019 Certified by:___________________________________________________________________ Ceasar McDowell Professor of the Practice Co-Chair, MCP Committee Thesis Supervisor Accepted by:__________________________________________________________________ Ceasar McDowell Professor of the Practice Co-Chair, MCP Committee Department of Urban Studies and Planning 1 Paint by Number: A Picture of Homelessness in the City of Boston by Maia Woluchem Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning on May 23, 2019 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in City Planning ABSTRACT Each year, several hundred individuals fall into homelessness in the City of Boston. Many turn to a web of agencies for shelter, housing, and services, which belong to a network of HUD-funded providers called the Continuum of Care. Since 2012, HUD has mandated a policy of coordinated entry across its Continuum of Care providers, encouraging each to prioritize the network’s limited housing and financial resources as one network, rather than as individual agencies. The City of Boston has created a robust technological infrastructure to facilitate this process, relying on a data-driven prioritization and matching engine called the Coordinated Access System (CAS) that matches individuals to housing opportunities throughout the city. CAS has been a tremendous organizational achievement in Boston and led to over 700 successful housing matches for individuals who had been homeless for decades. However, this same system has fundamentally changed the work of service providers, housing navigators, and agencies throughout the city and frayed some of the highly sensitive trust-based relationships those providers have with their clients. Data-driven coordinated entry has also aggravated fears among some critics, who worry about the long-range implications of inviting data and technology into the management of highly vulnerable communities. Through a series of interviews, this study reveals the nuances of coordinated entry to discover its effect on the agencies and homeless individuals within Boston’s Continuum of Care. I contextualize coordinated entry within modern discourse around privacy, surveillance and agency of marginalized communities, offering a closer look at both the opportunities and the unseen risks of applying rigid technical processes to complex social problems. Thesis Supervisor: Ceasar McDowell Title: Professor of the Practice Co-Chair, MCP Committee 2 Acknowledgements To Ceasar and Garnette, for creating the space to step into my ideas, support in discovering them, and the confidence to believe them. I cannot thank you enough for being the examples that you are. The guidance you’ve given throughout this process and beyond has meant the world to me. Thank you endlessly for letting me cry more than expected, find passions I never knew, and become more of myself than I knew I could be. To the City of Boston, for welcoming this stranger into your office, into your neighborhoods, into your worldview, and into your home over the past two years. Your generosity, passion, and openness will be missed dearly. To Justin and Nick, for your endless words of wisdom, commitment to justice, for being such wonderful sounding boards, for endless snacks, support, and late-night emails. Truly, this experience was so extraordinary because you were part of it. To Jay, I am forever indebted for your friendship, support, and partnership throughout this entire journey. It is the joy of my young life to have arrived here, spent so many late nights, and gotten through this with you. To Malaika and Alex, for whom I am so deeply grateful. Thank you for helping me laugh through this, rant through this, providing the snacks and the dance moves that have made this year so beautiful. To my DUSP family, I could never have imagined a group of people more inspiring, passionate, giving of their time and food. That you are part of this experience has been the greatest gift. That I can say I graduated with you is one of the greatest honors. To the lifelong friends among this family, thank you for the endless ways in which you’ve shaped my life. I’m forever changed because of it. And to my family, here and elsewhere, whose wildest dreams could never have been as wild these two years have been. I’m here because of who you are and who you helped me become. I love you always. 3 Table of Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 7 Methodology & Limitations ................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 1: An Action Plan to End Chronic Homelessness ................................................. 14 1.1 Coordinated Entry Driving Equity Forward? .............................................................. 21 1.2. Building A Hybrid Machine ......................................................................................... 24 1.3 Coordinated Entry: A Process ..................................................................................... 29 Chapter 2: Technology for Order or for Outcome? A View of Providers in the Continuum of Care ..................................................................................................................................... 34 2.1 Agency........................................................................................................................... 36 2.2 What is Agency in a Time of Scarcity? ........................................................................ 40 2.3 Relationships, Inside and Out...................................................................................... 43 2.4 The Systemic View ........................................................................................................ 47 Chapter 3: Technology as Confidant? .................................................................................. 50 3.1 Data as Descriptor is Difficult for Sensitive Communities ......................................... 54 3.2 Data Driven Barriers & Opportunities ......................................................................... 58 3.3 What Does Success Actually Look Like? ..................................................................... 62 3.4 “For decades, anonymity has meant…” .................................................................... 65 Chapter 4: Technology as Body Politic ................................................................................ 71 4.1 Attempts to Reclaim Agency ....................................................................................... 74 4.2 Conversely, Data-Driven Life in the Shadows ............................................................ 78 Chapter 5: On the Coordinated Future of Boston .............................................................. 80 5.1 Some Considerations Moving Forward ...................................................................... 80 5.2 Lessons from the Field ................................................................................................. 83 5.3 Observations from My Own Notebook ...................................................................... 87 Conclusion: ............................................................................................................................. 89 References .............................................................................................................................. 93 4 Abbreviations & Definitions BPHC Boston Public Health Commission Chronically homeless An individual can be considered “chronically homeless” if they have been homeless for at least one year or at least four separate occasion in three consecutive years and this person has a disabling condition CIO Chief Information Officer Coordinated Assessment System (CAS) Boston’s matching engine that facilitates the placement of homeless individuals to housing opportunities Coordinated Entry HUD’s mandate to coordinate the assessment of individuals and provision of homelessness services CoC Continuum of Care, a HUD-funded planning networks that coordinated services and funding for homeless families and individuals in the City of Boston DND Department of Neighborhood Development, the coordinating entity for Boston’s Continuum of Care FMR Fair Market Rent HMIS Homeless Management Information System HUD US Department of Housing and Urban Development Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) Programs that provide homeless individuals with both subsidized housing and wraparound social services to stabilize the individual in their housing opportunity. Rapid Rehousing Programs that move homeless individuals into housing as quickly as possible through minimal financial or logistical intervention 5 “Official statistics