Treatment Not Custody

Process and Impact Evaluation of the Santa Monica Homeless Community Court

Maya Buenaventura

ResearchPublished Sep 18, 2018

This dissertation is a process and impact evaluation of the Santa Monica Homeless Community Court. At homeless courts, misdemeanor quality of life cases arising from an individual's homelessness are resolved through alternative sentencing that requires participants to work towards permanent housing and obtain treatment to address underlying issues such as mental health disorders and substance use disorders. Although homeless courts have the potential to increase permanent housing placement and decrease recidivism, homeless courts have not been well-studied. There is only one publicly available homeless court evaluation, which included a recidivism impact analysis using an unmatched comparison group and did not include a housing impact analysis.

My research uses qualitative and quantitative methods to answer the following research questions:

  1. How do government entities and non-profit social service organizations work together to deliver the Santa Monica Homeless Community Court?
  2. How can the Santa Monica Homeless Community Court's enrollment and retention be improved?
  3. Is graduation from the Santa Monica Homeless Community Court associated with improved housing outcomes and decreased recidivism?

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Buenaventura, Maya, Treatment Not Custody: Process and Impact Evaluation of the Santa Monica Homeless Community Court. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2018. https://www.rand.org/pubs/rgs_dissertations/RGSD418.html.
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This document was submitted as a dissertation in July 2018 in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the doctoral degree in public policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. The faculty committee that supervised and approved the dissertation consisted of Sarah Hunter (Chair), Matthew Cefalu, and James Anderson.

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