Why Poverty is an Imperfect Outcome Variable

When doing a Case Management system setup or a data analysis project, we encourage our customers to think about tracking "outcomes" variables.  Outcomes are the effects your services (outputs) have on clients.  Since many of our customers provide services to low-income individuals and families, we often recommend tracking changes in a client's income.  As income changes over time an agency can aggregate those changes and look at their program services versus changes in their clients' poverty statuses.

While poverty is a good outcomes variable, on its own it can be imperfect.  Let's say we wanted to compare the outcomes of two programs offered by the same agency.  One program is a men's shelter, and the other a family shelter.  In the family shelter the data tells us the poverty statuses of those clients increased more rapidly, and to greater nominal heights, than in the men's shelter.  So is the family shelter program more effective?  Not necessarily.

While change in poverty status is a good measure, it has to be seen in context.  In our example, the clients in the men's shelter might deal with more chronic issues like mental health and drug addiction.  The clients in the family shelter may be more employable and have stronger social skills and networks.  Therefore, simply comparing the changes in poverty levels of the two programs would unduly favor the family shelter.

There is no definitive method for how to compare across different types of programs.  In some cases you may try to control for the differences between the two client types, alternatively you may apply some type of multiplier that better equates the two variables.  Ultimately, the use of data is both art and technique.  While it is never a good idea to ignore data in favor of anecdotes, data must always be understood in its context.

(Photo by Heather Brandon)

Shiny and New: Website Redesign

We've changed a few things around the Idealistics website, cleaning up the look and streamlining the system's explanations.  We've even added pictures to our employee bio's (a much requested addition).

We update our products often, regularly re-analyze our statistical techniques and methodologies, and like to bring that same focus on change, iteration, and innovation to every part of our business, including our website.  All things in life are a work in progress, and if they're not, they should be.  We take the view that nothing is ever complete to heart here at Idealistics.  It's part of what makes us what we are, and drives us to be better, and do better, for the people and organizations we support.

Take a look around our new site, and stay tuned for more changes coming.  

Tweeting good

The trendy thing for any tech company to do these days is build some type of Twitter program.  Not wanting to be left out, we at Idealistics built our own little Twitter utility.  The program, and its functionality, is simple.  The idea is to help twitter users find volunteer opportunities more easily.  Any twitter users can at reply (send a message to) the Idealistics Twitter account with a search term like "homeless shelter" or "mentoring kids" and the hashtag "#volunteer" to get a listing returned to them of local volunteer opporutnities.

We do this by utilizing the allforgood.org website, a collaborative effort spearheaded by Google to consolidate information from various volunteer databases throughout the country.  We use the twitter user's stated location (e.g. "Los Angeles, CA") to determine location for the search query.  So for example, the following message sent to @idealistics on Twitter

 @idealistics children literacy tutoring mentoring programs #volunteer

Would get the following response from the Idealistics Twitter account

@david_henderson here's a list of volunteer opportunities based on your location and search criterion http://tinyurl.com/yhdvbo3 #volunteer

That's it!  If you're on twitter, send us a message and give it a try.

Firefighters Don't Cause Fires: LAHSA's 2009 Homeless Count

Last week, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) released a report on their 2009 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. The report's main finding, that the homeless population in the cities covered by the Los Angeles Continuum of Care has dropped 38% since the last LAHSA-sponsored count in 2007, is counterintuitive, given the dramatic decline in the region's economic fortunes over the past two years. More accurate counting techniques may be responsible for the difference between the 2009 and 2007 reports as the authors write:

enhancements to the data collection process such as the increased number of volunteers, expansion of census tracts covered, and the reduction of possible counting biases have collectively enabled researchers to extrapolate more detailed information...

However, the authors downplay the role of the measurement strategy used in the 2009 report and make a bold claim:

While many factors likely contributed to this decline, it is important to acknowledge new and expanded programs implemented by the Los Angeles [Continuum of Care] network of housing and service providers.

The data presented in the report don't support this claim. Let's say measurement doesn't matter and the homeless population in the Continuum of Care's coverage area really has gone down 38% since 2007. The drop in homeless population says nothing about the success or failure of the providers' new and expanded programs. Just because these programs were implemented at the same time as a speculated decrease in the area's homeless population doesn't mean that the new programs caused the decrease by getting people off the streets and into new, self-sufficient lives.

Just because a person, agency, or program is present when an event occurs doesn't mean that he or she caused it. The title of this post is the classic example: firefighters are typically present when a fire occurs- does that mean that firefighters cause fires? Of course not, and we have statistical ways of showing that firefighters respond to fires. To prove a much less obvious conclusion, that new programs are responsible for a decline in the homeless population, LAHSA's researchers need to employ these techniques. The unlikely nature of a decline in homelessness during a recession necessitates good, solid evidence, not unsubstantiated claims.

(Photo by Lucas Janin)

Freeing client data

Companies like mine that build client management software for social service agencies should make it easy for those agencies to move from one vendor's system to another. The problem is that there are as many database schemas and proprietary binary data storage formats as there are client management software solutions. This presents two problems:

1. Moving from an old to a new database often means having staff reinput data, giving control of client data to the software vendor rather than the social service agency.

2. Since client management databases currently don't talk to each other, agencies are often put in positions of having multiple client management systems, one for their agency then any number of other systems that their funders require they enter client data into.

The solution to this problem is technically simple, and politically difficult.  Technically, the client management software industry should come together to build an open XML format to make data exchange between systems standardized.  Politically this is difficult because unlike some other industries, social service software as a sub-sector is a disorganized hodgepodge of non-profit and for-profit entities, rather than a federated association of organizations.

Without an open standard for moving client data from one vendor's system to another, social service agencies will continue to waste time duplicating data into multiple systems and will never truly be in control of their own information.

(Photo by Free Henrik Holappa)

Global warming hurts the poor

Our focus at Idealistics is on poverty reduction, not the environment.  However, there is a clear intersection between environmentalism and poverty issues.  In honor of Blog Action Day, an effort coordinated by Change.org to get multiple bloggers blogging about the same issue on the same day (this year's issue is climate change) I want to explore how climate change and poverty are linked.

The poor are greatly sensitive to changes in the price of food.  Climate change can adversely affect food production, and therefore prices.  Environmental advocates and researchers have explored how climate change may impact the poor, as was the case with a recent study

...by Purdue University researchers [that] examined the potential economic influence of adverse climate events, such as heat waves, drought and heavy rains, on those in 16 developing countries. Urban workers in Bangladesh, Mexico and Zambia were found to be the most at risk.

"Extreme weather affects agricultural productivity and can raise the price of staple foods, such as grains, that are important to poor households in developing countries," said Noah Diffenbaugh, the associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and interim director of Purdue's Climate Change Research Center who co-led the study. "Studies have shown global warming will likely increase the frequency and intensity of heat waves, drought and floods in many areas. It is important to understand which socioeconomic groups and countries could see changes in poverty rates in order to make informed policy decisions."

While my issue is poverty, if we don't take care of our environment, the poor will be at even greater risk.  Therefore by virtue of being a poverty advocate, I must be an environmentalist as well.

(Photo by lourdes272)

LA Homeless Blog and INFORuM

This morning I wrote a guest post for the LA Homeless Blog (written by Joel John Roberts, CEO of PATH Partners). The blog post, titled Homelessness: Not Just Another Statistic is an introduction to some of the thoughts I express on this blog about the need for better data metrics in social services.

On October 21st, PATH Partners will be launching a website called INFORuM, where I will be a regular blogger discussing with the readership how we in the social service sector can better use data to help people in need.  INFORuM is an ambitious effort to spark a national conversation on how to address issues of poverty and homelessness.  Such a forum is desperately needed.  There are lots of great thoughts in our sector, but to-date we lack a centralized forum where high-level knowledge exchange can take place.

According to the INFORuM website

INFORuM is a community blog encouraging nationwide dialogue on the issues of homelessness, housing and poverty between advocates, politicians and the general public. By bringing together bloggers from communities across the country and nationally-recognized guest columnists, INFORuM hopes to inspire innovative strategies to combat homelessness throughout the United States.

I look forward to being a part of the INFORuM site and feel privileged to have the opportunity to engage a wider audience about the important issue of better using data to achieve social outcomes.