The Policy Process
To participate in, and contribute to, the policy process
Evidence-Based Public Management and Policy:
United States' Leading Evidence-Based Policy Approach to Address Homelessness: The Housing First Policy
This paper examines the federal government's use of evidence-informed decision making by evaluating the evidence used to develop its Housing First (HF) policy approach to addressing homelessness. It also provides the reader an overview of the state of homelessness within the United States, identify the key factors that lead to someone experiencing loss of housing, and also present leading evidence supporting the use of HF as an effective way to end homelessness. Finally, a set of recommendations on how the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development can strengthen its HF's approach is provided.
Administrative Ethics:
Evaluating HUD's Proposed Administrative Changes to its Equal Access Rule During the Trump Administration
The first academic product listed below provides an overview of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) 2012 and 2016 Equal Access (EA) rules. Both rules seek to address discrimination in programs and shelters faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer (LGBTQ) persons by ensuring HUD-funded programs commit to providing equal access to all communities. The paper also examines a recently proposed HUD rule, FR-6152, which contradicts the agency’s EA rules and undermines the agency's previous LGBTQ anti-discrimination efforts. The reader learns how an administrator's ideology can drive policy making decisions and can ultimately steer a public agency contradictory to its mission. I also analyze how the agency's citizen participation requirements, pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946, offer the public an opportunity to dramatically influence the rule making process.
This second product under this title are keynote remarks I presented on HUD's EA rules and FR-6152 to my Public Policy Process class in the Summer of 2019. During this presentation, I analyzed HUD’s EA rules through the lens of the Public Policy Stages Model of issue emergence, agenda setting, alternative selection, enactment, and design and implementation. I also discussed how FR-6152 reflected an ideological agenda of HUD's leadership at the time
Photograph of an art entry for Monmouth County, NJ's 2019 calendar commemorating Fair Housing Month