Increasing Capacity to Address Homelessness  

This project partners with New Community Corporation (NCC), a community development corporation in Newark, to enhance its infrastructure to facilitate rapid and stable transitions from homelessness into permanent housing for families in its transitional housing program. A multidisciplinary team of Rutgers faculty, staff, and students, including four members of the University’s Housing and Health Equity cluster, are engaging with NCC in a data-centered strategic planning process to ensure that the housing navigator, and NCC’s supports for that role, are appropriate to the challenges facing their families. NCC’s transitional housing facility, Harmony House, will hire a housing navigator to assist families whose housing search is increasingly hindered by high unemployment rates and rising rents.

This strategy’s foundation is a multi-methods approach combining quantitative homeless services data from Harmony House and across Newark with qualitative interviews with NCC clients, staff, and partners and a review of evidence-based practices around housing navigators. Working with NCC, the research team will conduct interviews and analyze data, draft a report, and present the work to NCC and other local stakeholders. Rutgers’ Voorhees Fellows will work with the team on strategies to improve housing navigation practices and obtain sustainable funding.