Helping Homeless Families Achieve Stability: A Process Evaluation of the Junius Street and Liberty Street Family Residences

Women in Need (WIN) is a New York City-based nonprofit organization that offers residential shelter in conjunction with support services to help homeless families achieve residential stability. Social support services include employment services, domestic violence counseling as well as HIV education and prevention services, which are intended to help clients address the underlying factors that often contribute to a family becoming homeless. Two of these shelters, Junius and Liberty, provide shelter and support to the bulk of the families served by WIN and are the subject of this Capstone project. WIN requested that the Capstone team conduct a comprehensive process evaluation of the two shelters to determine whether the social support services have been implemented as designed. This evaluation included the construction of program logic models, a review of management information systems, extensive interviews of staff and clients, and a literature review of relevant research on programs similar to WIN. Additionally, the Capstone team designed a framework for an impact evaluation to be conducted at a later date by WIN or another Capstone team.