RAND Housing Center Projects
Current Projects
Assessing the Effect of HUD Small Area Fair Market Rents on Access to High Achieving Schools
This Arnold Ventures-funded project assesses the casual effect of using Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMRs) in HUD's Housing Choice Voucher Program on households' access to high-opportunity neighborhoods using a difference-in-differences strategy. Key outcomes include
- school quality
- neighborhood opportunity index
- rent burden for voucher recipients in areas that use SAFMRs.
SAFMRs are a place-based policy that give families more rental support if they reside in zip codes with higher market rents.
Assessing the Effects of Permanent Supportive Housing on Neighborhood Crime
This Arnold Ventures-funded project will use spatial causal inference methods to assess how openings of homeless-serving housing facilities affect local crime patterns. Public safety concerns are regularly cited as a source of opposition to such projects, but robust evidence on this question is scarce. The study will focus on Los Angeles, a major U.S. metro disproportionately affected by homelessness, that has also tremendously increased the number of such facilities within the last several years.
How Impact Fees Shape Housing Production and Public Revenue
This study will assess how the use of impact fees to finance infrastructure related to new housing production affects the financial feasibility of multifamily housing in multiple case study cities in California. The study will also estimate the tradeoff between foregone revenue from impact fees under multiple reform scenarios and increased revenue from growth in the property tax base. This study is financed by CALYIMBY and Coefficient Giving.
Estimating the Impact of Drought on California’s Housing Needs
In California, the increases in housing supply needed to help address the state’s growing shortage of affordable housing sit in stark contrast to the risks of declining water available to meet these housing needs. At the same time, climate change is increasing the frequency and magnitude of drought, resulting in loss of water supply and water shortages across the state. To address these issues, and as a part of the Fifth California Climate Change Assessment, this project will
- estimate how much housing growth will be constrained by future drought and how that will affect California’s future unmet housing needs
- work will with stakeholders to determine a range of appropriate policies, investments or interventions that could reduce these constraints on housing growth.
The effort will focus on three counties in California—San Bernardino, Ventura, and San Diego—that acutely face the dual challenges of drought and housing affordability, as well as represent varying hydrologic and urban contexts to examine these dynamics.
LA LEADS (Longitudinal Enumeration and Demographic Survey Study)
In Fall 2021 the center launched a first-of-a-kind data collection effort to provide better estimates of unsheltered people in Los Angeles and gather their perspectives on obtaining housing in Los Angeles. Three “hot spot” areas—Skid Row, Hollywood, and Venice—were visited to count the number of unhoused people, vehicles, tents and makeshift shelters. We have surveyed over 600 individuals in these same areas on their demographics, housing and homeless experiences, needs, and preferences.
This study has been covered extensively by the LA Times (2023, 2024, 2025), LAist (2022, 2024, 2025), New York Times, CNN, National Public Radio, KCRW radio, CBS News, The Guardian, and other media outlets.
The LA LEADS study is made possible by a generous funding from the Lowy Family Group. The 2023 effort was also supported by the A-Mark Foundation. An early extension of the LA LEADS study focusing on the “Veterans Row” encampment outside the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Campus was funded by the RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Research Institute, which was established from a gift by the Daniel J. Epstein Family Foundation to RAND.
Latest Report
Additional LA LEADS Data Resources
Working Condition Preferences Among Frontline Workers in the Homeless Response Sector
This study builds on RAND’s previous effort that illuminated the significant compensation challenges facing frontline workers serving people experiencing homelessness (PEH) in Los Angeles County.
Considering these challenges, little is known about the homeless response sector workforce and what working conditions are most meaningful to them (e.g., flexible work, the provision of medical benefits, and paid time off). Anecdotal evidence suggests that some frontline workers place high value on having a higher wage and are willing to move jobs for a $1-$2 dollar increase in their hourly wage. However, no research examines workers’ valuation of specific working conditions and how these preferences might impact turnover. Moreover, there is no evidence on how these preferences may vary by demographic characteristics, such as race/ethnicity, gender, household income, and those with lived experience.
This study will fill an important knowledge gap by estimating frontline worker preferences for a range of working conditions and put these valuations in dollar terms. The findings could help with the recruitment and retention of the workforce by modifying wage levels or working conditions to best meet worker preferences.
This project is funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.
Impact Evaluation of a California Pilot Program for Enhanced Services to Veterans in Permanent Supportive Housing
RAND will evaluate a California pilot program titled “Veterans Support to Self-Reliance” (VSSR). VSSR is designed to provide enhanced supportive services to veterans in permanent supportive housing sites in need of on-site services, which may include but are not limited to skilled nursing care, medication management, peer specialists, and geriatric social workers.
The pilot is being implemented across six locations in California by four service providers over a three-year period. The goal of the program is to improve housing stability and well-being among program participants.
This project is funded by Swords to Plowshares through a grant from the California Department of Veteran Affairs. Preliminary findings from this project are available in a California Department of Veteran Affairs February 2025 State Legislature report.
Examining the Impact of Climate Change on California’s Unsheltered Population
At the start of 2024, RAND began work as a part of California’s Fifth Climate Change Assessment to understand the impact of climate change on California’s unsheltered population. As the climate changes, California will experience more dangerous and frequent heat waves, incidents of toxic wildfire smoke, and flooding from heavy precipitation events. These hazards leave the over 110,000 people in California living unsheltered at particular risk.
This project will provide officials with an understanding of the frequency and severity of extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and heavy precipitation induced flooding in areas in California with large unsheltered populations. From interviews with practitioners across California, RAND will supply a list of feasible strategies to alleviate the harm from increasingly common extreme weather and provide an understanding of the challenges to implementing these strategies.
Through quantitative and qualitative surveys with unsheltered individuals in Los Angeles and Sacramento Counties, RAND will describe what prevents these strategies from being successful, how risk is communicated and evaluated, and what could be done to reduce risk to unsheltered people during extreme weather events.
Understanding Evictions in LA County to Improve Homelessness Prevention Programming
Researchers have established that evictions are a risk factor for homelessness. However, little is known about the occurrence and causes of evictions within Los Angeles County. Additionally, Los Angeles County administers programs that provide short-term rental and legal assistance to income-eligible individuals facing evictions. However, given the lack of data on the location of evictions, eviction prevention programs may not effectively reach individuals at risk of being evicted.
In this project, we are working with service organizations and housing providers to develop an interactive toolkit to support providers in identifying individuals at risk of eviction. We will leverage detailed disaggregated data we have collected on the occurrence of evictions within Los Angeles County. We will also attempt to link data on evictions with information on unhoused individuals to better understand the relationship between evictions and homelessness.
This project is funded by the Homelessness Policy Research Institute with support from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.
Los Angeles County Eviction Prevention Resources, 2024Completed Projects
Evaluation of Breaking Barriers: An Adult Reentry Rental Assistance Grant Program
Breaking Barriers is a program designed to provide scattered-site rapid re-housing and employment services to adults on felony probation who are experiencing homelessness or are precariously housed in Los Angeles County. During the early years of the program in 2020, RAND conducted a formative evaluation to provide early feedback to stakeholders on program progress and a summative evaluation examining initial program outcomes.
RAND recently conducted a second evaluation of the program using both qualitative and quantitative approaches and a participatory, performance improvement approach. The process component of the evaluation aimed to assess whether the established program is meeting process objectives, including linkage to rental assistance, employment and educational services, and community resources.
The outcomes component of the evaluation focused on employment, income, housing stability, and recidivism (exits from the program due to incarceration), as well as correlations between these outcomes and participant experiences and characteristics.
Funding for the rental assistance program and evaluation are supported by a grant from the California Board of State and Community Corrections.
Permanent Supportive Housing Program Evaluation for Justice-Involved Individuals in Pima County, Arizona
In 2018, Pima County, Arizona invested in a permanent supportive housing initiative to divert and prevent individuals from incarceration and into stable housing. In 2021, RAND published an evaluation based on enrollees during the first two years of program implementation.
In 2025, Pima County contracted with RAND to provide a second evaluation of the program now that it has reached a more advanced phase of implementation.
Improving Utilization in the Federal Housing Choice Voucher Program
The RAND Housing Center received a grant from the Cooper Housing Institute to identify ways to improve utilization in the federal Housing Choice Voucher program, with a goal of achieving higher use rates among families that receive Section 8 vouchers.
The Housing Choice Voucher program helps more than 5 million low-income Americans afford safe and decent housing in the private retail market. The demand for the Section 8 vouchers far outstrips supply, with only one in four of eligible households receiving a voucher.
Despite this demand, many communities across the country experience persistent difficulties with landlord participation because of housing scarcity, as well as administrative and structural hurdles associated with the Housing Choice Voucher program. These challenges have resulted in vouchers going unused in many high housing cost-burdened markets.
The RAND study aimed to identify policy and operational choices within public housing authority control that could loosen these hurdles and increase voucher use.
The research was conducted in collaboration with the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. The Cooper Housing Institute is a private research foundation dedicated to solving the affordable housing crisis in the U.S.
Cost Differences and Cost Drivers in Multifamily Housing Production Across States
This study uses cost data on more than 40 multifamily housing developments from a large, for-profit developer and cost data on more than 200 publicly subsidized affordable housing projects in three case-study states—California, Colorado, and Texas—to compare differences in overall production costs and in specific cost categories. The study brings to bear evidence on differences in state and local regulations and differences in state- and locality-specific differences in labor and materials costs to understand the substantial and persistent differences in both average production costs and the variation in costs.
The goal of this study is to help policymakers and stakeholders concerned with housing affordability better understand the role of local factors and how various policy reforms may be able to lower the average costs of housing production to increase “naturally occurring” affordability in multifamily housing.
This report has been cited dozens of times in news media including CalMatters, The New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, and was the top visited report on rand.org in April 2025.
This project was funded by the Dsea Wong Foundation.
Understanding Transition Aged Youth Homeless Experiences and Foster Care Involvement
This project sought to build foundational knowledge about transition aged youth (TAY) experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County and, more specifically, expand on what is known about those involved with the foster care (FC) system.
First, RAND conducted a survey effort to gather extensive quantitative and qualitative information from nearly 400 unhoused TAY including demographic information, involvement with the FC system, past housing and homelessness experiences, and current housing needs and preferences.
Second, RAND conducted a longitudinal qualitative interview effort that included monthly data collection with 24 FC-involved TAY for up to one year. In these interviews we assessed life goals, factors contributing to lack of housing or housing instability, and housing system outcomes. This rich qualitative data enabled us to track changes over time in these outcomes and how they are related to other measures, such as health and well-being.
This project was funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.
Determining the Feasibility of Developing a Comprehensive Data Tool of Housing Stock to Address Homelessness in Los Angeles
Despite the dramatic scope of homelessness in Los Angeles County, we lack a credible, comprehensive source of data on the housing stock available for addressing this issue. Creating a single source that measures the existing levels of housing can critically inform efforts to assess the appropriate mix of housing to best meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness (PEH).
In 2022, we published a tool that presented information from a wide array of sources on permanent supportive housing in Los Angeles County. In 2023, we expanded the database to also include deed-restricted affordable housing developments as well as residential settings that address physical, mental, and substance use treatment needs.
Bringing these diverse sources of information together and synthesizing into a functional, usable data tool will allow policymakers and housing planners to better understand the extent of housing supports available to PEH and help to better address the needs of this population moving forward. This project was funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.
An Evaluation of Crime-Free Housing Programs
In the state of California, over 90 cities have “crime-free housing programs,” which encourage or require private landlords and property managers to add supplemental agreements to leases, stating tenants in multifamily housing units can be evicted if they are arrested by law enforcement. Proponents of this policy state this leads to reduced property and violent crime rates in cities while detractors claim these policies lead to increased evictions and surveillance of low-income tenants.
This project aims to investigate the policy’s outcomes using contemporary causal inference methods and qualitative research methods. In addition, this project builds a new dataset for researchers concerning evictions, using records on “notices-of-restoration” obtained from all sheriff departments in the state of California.
This research has been highly impactful. The work was discussed in a Los Angeles Times article, along with an accompanying opinion piece. Multiple organizations ran articles discussing the report’s findings, including Housing Matters, the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the National Criminal Justice Association, and The Marshall Project.
Additional articles also include a series of investigative reporting in Arizona, which replicated the RAND analysis in Arizona and found similar findings to those in the report.
We provided briefings to Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, which led to a letter issued by DOJ in August 2024 recommending law enforcement agencies end their programs, citing RAND research. The research was also cited by the California Attorney General [pdf], the National Network to End Domestic Violence, and the Los Angeles Regional Reentry Partnership in letters to HUD recommending changes to HUD-assisted housing rules.
Municipalities and states have begun to repeal these ordinances and programs. Most recently, the city of Oakland [pdf] cited RAND work in legislation that repealed a criminal nuisance ordinance, and the state of Illinois has introduced legislation to prohibit municipalities from maintaining or implementing criminal nuisance ordinances.
Homeless Service Sector Living Wage Study
This is a mixed method study that examines the living wage in LA County and contextualizes it in relationship to the wages provided in the homeless service sector. This project was funded by Social Justice Partners Los Angeles and Cedars Sinai.
Daytime Services Landscape Analysis
The study, undertaken between November 2022 and April 2023, reviewed Los Angeles County’s landscape of daytime services for people experiencing homelessness to inform United Way of Greater Los Angeles’ investment strategy in this sector. An important consideration for the investment strategy is to increase meaningful collaborations between nonprofit organizations, faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, and public agencies.
Therefore, we needed to know who is providing services? How are they currently funded and staffed? At what scale and physical capacity do they operate? What services are they providing? When and where? Do providers document their activities, and if so, how?
This project was funded by the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.