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This deposit contains the semi-structured youth interview protocol used in the study “Youth Homelessness and Social Networks from the Margins.” Raw interview transcripts, coded qualitative data, and analytic files are not included because the study involves sensitive interviews with youth who experienced homelessness, and those materials carry substantial confidentiality and disclosure risks.

The South Carolina Center for Fathers and Families (Center) is proposing to offer an enhancement to its current primary workshop offerings to improve a participant's housing status. Few of the Center's participants are homeowners and many lack stable housing. The Center is defining housing stability on the following spectrum: (1) literally homeless - emergency shelter, community based transitional housing, streets; (2) transitional housing - staying or living doubled up with a family member or friend (with or without paying rent); (3) stable housing - own rental unit with participant's name as leaseholder; and (4) permanent housing - home ownership with or without mortgage in the participant's name. The aim of Housing Stability to Home Ownership (H2O) is to move participants up the previously defined housing spectrum and stabilize the father and his family.

The H2O Program includes:

1. Completing the H2O Enhancement Courses (9 hours of instruction)
2. Assessing current and indicating desired position on the Housing Stability Spectrum
3. Plan focused on making progress to achieve desired level on the Housing Stability Spectrum
4. Follow-up case management/housing search assistance
5. Formal case closure at 18 months

People experiencing homelessness (PEH) were among the most likely to contract the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Many PEH utilized high-density public places to satisfy their basic needs (e.g., soup kitchens for sustenance, public libraries for restrooms). This made it difficult for them to limit close contact with others and put them at increased risk of contracting and transmitting COVID-19. Furthermore, it was difficult to follow recommended protective measures--such as handwashing and social distancing--when living in shelters or on the streets.

PEH were at higher risk of COVID-19 related hospitalization and death than the rest of the population. The poor living conditions of PEH accelerated aging, leading them to experience geriatric conditions and medical complications more typical of individuals 10-20 years older. They were also at increased risk of cardiovascular and respiratory disease, HIV/AIDS, and diabetes, all conditions that increase vulnerability to serious COVID-19-related complications and death. These risks were compounded by the fact that PEH also faced significant barriers to accessing quality health care. In the absence of protective action, it was estimated that more than 21,000 PEH would require hospitalization due to COVID-19, more than 7,000 would require critical care, and nearly 3,500 would die.

Consequently, the COVID-19 pandemic made housing and health care for PEH one of the top priorities for the U.S. health care and public health systems. State and local governments across the country used federal relief funds to allocate private hotel rooms as protective shelter for vulnerable PEH. In Los Angeles County (LAC), which contains the largest unsheltered homeless population in the nation, 2,400 PEH were placed in hotels. COVID-19 response plans included accommodating up to 15,000 PEH in hotels who would then be moved to permanent housing in 90 days. This rapid push into housing amid a pandemic necessitated a delicate balance between social distancing and maintaining patients' basic needs, continuity of existing care, and personal and social well-being.

Permanent supportive housing (PSH)--programs that provide immediate access to independent living situations coupled with support services--is the most effective approach for serving PEH. Numerous studies have demonstrated PSH's effectiveness in improving housing retention, quality of life, and HIV outcomes. Though evidence concerning its impact on other health outcomes, health behaviors, and health care utilization is limited, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has nonetheless recognized PSH as extremely beneficial for PEH's health. COVID-19 was what this organization termed a "housing-sensitive condition"--one whose transmissibility, course, and medical management are particularly influenced by homelessness. Consequently, the National Alliance to End Homelessness recommended the use of PSH as part of its framework to address COVID-19 and homelessness.

However, significant questions remain about what types of PSH programs can best address COVID-19-related risk and promote patient-centered outcomes at a time of social and community disruption. There are two distinct approaches to implementing PSH: place-based (PB) PSH, or single-site housing placement in a congregate residence with on-site services, and scattered-site (SS) PSH, which uses apartments rented from a private landlord to house clients while providing mobile case management services. The strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches remain largely unknown but may have direct implications for adherence to COVID-19 prevention protocols and other health-related outcomes.

Across the country, child welfare and juvenile justice systems now recognize that youth involved in both systems (i.e., dual system youth) are a vulnerable population who go unrecognized because of challenges in information-sharing and cross-system collaboration. These challenges currently prevent the development of accurate estimations of the number of dual system youth nationally and limit understanding of best practices used by jurisdictions implementing integrated systems models. OJJDP funded this secondary analysis study to address this gap in knowledge.

All data used in the Dual System Youth Design Study were owned or accessed by various partners. No primary data collection occurred in the study. In addition, most of the data accessed by the study partners was confidential, de-identified data that required memorandums of agreement and/or court orders to access and use. Some sites have ongoing or standing agreements with the public agencies who own the data which allow access and use for specific projects. Because, most frequently, the data are owned by the public service agencies and include sensitive information the data are not available to be publicly archived. Instead, here a descriptive overview is provided of the data used and accessed by each study partner as well as contact information of a person at each site that will be able to share syntax and/or coding parameters for those who are considering to replicate the findings or methods.

Researchers interested in inquiring the data and syntax used in this project should refer to the study partners section of the downloadable study documentation. Data provider agency names along with the specific study data that were requested are listed in the documentation.

The 2018 Atlanta Youth Count (AYC18), a follow-up to the 2015 Atlanta Youth Count and Needs Assessment (AYCNA), was expanded in 2018 to specifically address sex and labor trafficking among youth experiencing homelessness in metro Atlanta. This project was designed to provide impact on court, law enforcement, and victim service practices at the jurisdictional level in Georgia, and beyond.

Homeless youth in metro Atlanta and surrounding counties were contacted through outreach efforts at youth shelters, motels, and street locations where homeless youth tend to congregate. Data collection focused on basic demographic information, history of homelessness, health, sexual experiences, and social supports.

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS) was conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) to examine the experiences of transgender adults in the United States. The USTS questionnaire was administered online and data were collected over a 34-day period in the summer of 2015, between August 19 and September 21. The final sample included respondents from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and U.S. military bases overseas. The USTS Public Use Dataset (PUDS) features survey results from 27,715 respondents and details the experiences of transgender people across a wide range of areas, such as education, employment, family life, health, housing, and interactions with police and prisons.

The survey instrument had thirty-two sections that covered a broad array of topics, including questions related to the following topics (in alphabetical order): accessing restrooms; airport security; civic participation; counseling; family and peer support; health and health insurance; HIV; housing and homelessness; identity documents; immigration; intimate partner violence; military service; police and incarceration; policy priorities; public accommodations; sex work; sexual assault; substance use; suicidal thoughts and behaviors; unequal treatment, harassment, and physical attack; and voting.

Demographic information includes age, racial and ethnic identity, sex assigned at birth, gender and preferred pronouns, sexual orientation, language(s) spoken at home, education, employment, income, religion/spirituality, and marital status.

There are no publicly available data files for this study. The naming conventions were maintained from the original pre-ICPSR release and the PUDS file is restricted use along with the qualitative data (MS Excel) file.

Before applying for access to these data please refer to the Approved Requests for USTS Data. These abstracts describe work currently in progress, and we provide them to help reduce the risk of duplication of research efforts.

With the creation of the first drug court in Miami-Dade County, Florida in 1989, problem-solving courts emerged as an innovative effort to close the revolving door of recidivism. Designed to target the social and psychological problems underlying certain types of criminal behavior, the problem-solving model boasts a community-based, therapeutic approach. As a result of the anecdotal successes of early drug courts, states expanded the problem-solving court model by developing specialized courts or court dockets to address a number of social problems. Although the number and types of problem-solving courts has been expanding, the formal research and statistical information regarding the operations and models of these programs has not grown at the same rate. Multiple organizations have started mapping the variety of problem-solving courts in the county; however, a national catalogue of problem-solving court infrastructure is lacking. As evidence of this, different counts of problem-solving courts have been offered by different groups, and a likely part of the discrepancy lies in disagreements about how to define and identify a problem-solving court. What is known about problem-solving courts is therefore limited to evaluation or outcome analyses of specific court programs.

In 2010, the Bureau of Justice Statistics awarded the National Center for State Courts a grant to develop accurate and reliable national statistics regarding problem-solving court operations, staffing, and participant characteristics. The NCSC, with assistance from the National Drug Court Institute (NDCI), produced the resulting Census of Problem-Solving Courts which captures information on over 3,000 problem-solving courts that were operational in 2012.