Skip to main content
eScholarship
Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (5 results)

  • Thesis
  • Peer Reviewed
UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2022)

For the past decade, every year at least 1.2 million students in the United States have been identified as homeless. While many youth graduate high school despite experiencing homelessness, a large minority do not complete high school in four years. Not obtaining a high school diploma negatively impacts future opportunities for youth and increases their risk of becoming homeless as adults. This dissertation uses Los Angeles County as a case study to evaluate the formal and informal networks of support that high school students use to meet their academic and physiological needs to remain housed and graduate high school.

This study is guided by three main questions: (1) How does Los Angeles County support students experiencing homelessness in their pursuit to graduate high school? (2) How do students in Los Angeles County navigate the barriers of homelessness and successfully graduate high school? (3) How do school districts in Los Angeles County successfully support students experiencing homelessness in their pursuit to graduate high school? Data for this study come from 63 interviews with formerly homeless youth, youth experiencing homelessness, teachers, counselors, principals, district homeless liaisons, community-based organizations, and city and county homeless administrative leaders, as well as school district site observations, and a review of 890 city, county, and state documents. The study considers structural racism when assessing county and school district level strategies that support the needs of students experiencing homelessness.

Major findings speak to a phenomenon this dissertation coins as Impoverished Institutional Network (IIN). An impoverished institutional network is defined as a public institution’s inability to provide the necessary financial, social, cultural, and organizational capital to adequately support historically marginalized, vulnerable populations, thereby becoming overly reliant on punitive practices or punitive public institutions like the criminal justice and foster care systems to serve those populations. While youth and some school personnel interviewed in this study exhibited a high degree of agency, their efficacy was limited by the networks to which they were relegated.

This dissertation is the first comprehensive study on student homelessness that utilizes a municipal county as the unit of analysis. Additionally, this dissertation introduces IIN as a new construct for assessing a school districts' ability to respond to student homelessness.

    Cover page: It Takes Us All: Analyzing School Districts’ Comprehensive Approaches to Support Students Impacted by Homelessness
    • Article
    Research Reports (2021)

    In Los Angeles County, Black people represent 9% of the general population yet comprise 40% of the homeless population. In its 2018 groundbreaking report, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Ad Hoc Committee on Black People with Lived Experience of Homelessness concluded that homelessness is a by-product of racism in the United States. The Committee also found racial inequities in outcomes for Black residents of homeless services, particularly Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH).

    This report, in partnership with LAHSA and community-based service providers, further examines why there are racial inequities in returns to homelessness or interim housing for Black PSH residents. To estimate the racial inequity in returns to homelessness, we used administrative data from the Homelessness Management Information System (HMIS). To identify potential factors that contribute to Black residents falling out of PSH and returning to homelessness, we conducted interviews and focus groups with PSH program managers, case managers, and Black residents.

    This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278.

      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      K-12 Integration and Diversity (2024)
      This paper explores obstacles to recruiting and retaining teachers of color and Indigenous teachers (TOCIT) in California’s schools. The researchers used a mix of qualitative and quantitative data collected over the course of one year from system leaders in teacher preparation, pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and former teachers to better understand current policies and practices that may be contributing to teacher burnout, turnover and early retirement.
        Cover page: Barriers to Racial Equity for Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers in California’s Teaching Pipeline and ProfessionCreative Commons 'BY-NC-ND' version 4.0 license
        • Book
        Publications (2020)
        This Resource Guide is the outcome of a Summer Institute on Methodologies for Housing Justice convened by the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin as part of the Housing Justice in Unequal Cities Network, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (BCS 1758774). Held in Los Angeles in August 2019, the Summer Institute brought together participants from cities around the world. As is the case with the overall scope and purpose of the Housing Justice in Unequal Cities Network, it created a shared terrain of scholarship for movement-based and university-based scholars. Dissatisfied with the canonical methods that are in use in housing studies and guided by housing justice movements that are active research communities, the Summer Institute was premised on the assertion that methodology is political. Methodology is rooted in arguments about the world and involves relations of power and knowledge. The method itself – be it countermapping or people’s diaries – does not ensure an ethics of solidarity and a purpose of justice. Such goals require methodologies for liberation. Thus, as is evident in this Resource Guide, our endeavor foregrounds innovative methods that are being used by researchers across academia and activism and explicitly situates such methods in an orientation towards housing justice.
          Cover page: Methodologies for Housing Justice Resource Guide
          • Book
          Publications (2020)
          Esta Guía de Recursos es el resultado de un Instituto de Verano sobre Metodologías para la Justicia en la Vivienda convocado por el Instituto sobre Desigualdad y Democracia de UCLA Luskin como parte de la Red de Justicia en la Vivienda en Ciudades Desiguales, que es apoyada por la Fundación Nacional de Ciencias (BCS 1758774). Celebrado en Los Ángeles en agosto de 2019, el Instituto de Verano reunió a participantes de ciudades de todo el mundo. Al igual que el alcance y el propósito general de la Red de Justicia en las Ciudades Desiguales, creó un terreno compartido de para estudiosos del movimiento y académicos de universidades. Con una insatisfacción a los métodos canónicos que se utilizan en los estudios sobre la vivienda y guiado por los movimientos de justicia de la vivienda que son comunidades de investigación activa, el Instituto de verano se basó en la afirmación de que la metodología es política. La metodología se basa en argumentos sobre el mundo e implica relaciones de poder y conocimiento. El método por sí mismo -ya sea el contra ataque al mapeo o los diarios de la genteno asegura una ética de solidaridad y un propósito de justicia. Tales objetivos requieren metodologías para la liberación. Por lo tanto, como es evidente en esta Guía de Recursos, nuestro esfuerzo pone en primer plano los métodos innovadores que están siendo utilizados por los investigadores en todo el mundo académico y el activismo y sitúa explícitamente tales métodos en una orientación hacia la vivienda la justicia.
            Cover page: Metodologías para la justicia de la vivienda: Guia de recursos
            Top