LDRS591, Unit 2, Activity 2.4

The E-Book I chose is Strategies for Improving Homeless People’s Access to Mainstream Benefits and Services by Martha Burt, Jenneth Carpenter, Samuel Hall, Kathryn Henderson, Debra Rog, John Hornik, Ann Denton, and Garrett Moran. The E-book link is here: http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS124562

1. Authority: The authors of this study come from different research entities:
   1. The Urban Institute is a U.S. think-tank comprising of “social scientists, economists, communicators, mathematicians, demographers, and data scientists” (Who We Are, 2017). Established in 1968, its founding president was a former Assistant Secretary for Wealth, Education, and Welfare – it claims to advance “the well-being of people” in the U.S. through research. Martha Burt and Samuel Hall are the Principal Research Associate, with appearances on C-SPAN dating back to 1988, and an accomplished lawyer – respectively
   2. The Advocates for Human Potential’s aim is to influence “change in health and business systems to support vulnerable populations” (Advocates for Human Potential, n.d.). Their history spans 30 years – 10 of which Jenneth Carpenter was involved, holding PhD and Masters degrees in Social Work. John Hornik holds a PhD in Engineering as Director of Research and Ann Denton holds a Masters in Education as a Director within this organization also.
   3. Westat was founded in 1963 by three statisticians and is behind many U.S. federal government statistics (About Us, n.d.).  Kathryn Henderson is Senior Study Director and both Debra Rog and Garrett Moran serve as Vice Presidents – every author holds a PhD.
2. Currency: This book was prepared in March 2010 for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research.
3. Purpose: Although not blatently stated, one can infer its intended use is to aid national and macro-level policymakers in addressing the difficulty of accessing resources in vulnerable populations. A secondary audience includes the micro-level participants, such as municipalities, communities, hospitals, and non-profits; the research noted in this book provides seven examples of cities and their respective organizational structures that could be integrated and adapted by other communities.
4. Publication type/process: Because this book was written for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, they are naturally also the publishers. The benefit of having three different research entities collaborate is that peer-review is, excluding biases, inherent prior to publishing. According to Google Scholar, it has been cited by sixteen other research bodies related to homelessness and social services.
5. Biases: The authors do not reveal obvious biases in the research; the institutions they represent predominantly claim to be non-partisan. However, due to the nature of research funding, I speculate the examples chosen in the book may lean towards larger “success stories.” In order for these think-tanks to win future contracts, especially with a source of funding as big as the U.S. government, there is likely pressure to find data that can grab headlines and is immediately actionable – lest the government bring their funding to someone else who can help garner more attention.

References:

Who We Are. (2017, November 01). Retrieved January 11, 2018, from https://www.urban.org/aboutus/who-we-are