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For Ending Homelessness?: The McKinney Act at Twenty-Five, I am inviting scholars, policymakers, advocates, and service providers to assess the impact of 1987’s federal response to homelessness—the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (later amended as McKinney-Vento). I am seeking contributions for an edited volume that analyzes the current effectiveness of homeless policies and services, as well as the state of knowledge on homelessness in America, after twenty-five years of sustained federal involvement with the issue.
First introduced in Congress in 1986, the McKinney Act contained emergency relief measures, preventive measures, and long-term solutions to homelessness. It emerged after several decades of shifts in homeless population demographics and size, changes in sociological literature on homelessness, and transformations in urban landscapes. In the nine titles of this legislation, homelessness was defined; the Interagency Council on the Homeless was established; many programs were authorized, including the Emergency Food and Shelter Program, emergency shelter and transitional housing programs, health care services to homeless persons, and education and job training programs; and many programs were revised to better address homeless populations, including Food Stamps and the Veterans Job Training Act.
As the twenty-fifth anniversary of this legislation approaches, we have a good opportunity to reflect on the legacy and impact of this federal response to homelessness. While this evaluation does include the usual outcome measurements, it also moves beyond numbers and programs to analyze the impact of establishing a federal, legal definition of homelessness and developing extensive means for coordinating action between federal agencies and different levels of government.
Possible topics include:
* The evolution of federal responses to homelessness after McKinney-Vento
* The effectiveness of implementing the legislation
* The efficacy of federal homeless programs in redressing the problem
* Outcome measurements of specific programs, e.g., HOPWA, Emergency Food and Shelter Program, SHP, Veterans programs, etc.
* The effectiveness and/or changing role of the Interagency Council on the Homeless in coordinating federal action
* How well have federal, state and local governments coordinated homeless programs
* The effectiveness of the Continuum of Care system as a planning tool
* The impact of establishing a federal, legal definition of homelessness which was quite distinct from how social scientists had long understood the category
* How traces of older understandings of homelessness have lingered in current policy and service delivery
* Impact of federal intervention on innovation and reflection by historians and sociologists
* Future of McKinney-Vento programs
* Future of efforts to end homelessness
* Other topics which reflect on the impacts of the McKinney-Vento Act
Please submit an abstract of no more than 1000 words along with your curriculum vitae/resume by May 1, 2010.
Philip Webb, DePaul University, pwebb2@depaul.edu
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