When his phone rang in February, Mashan Cross doubted the soft voice that would help at the end of the line.
“What are you doing?” And who are you with? “ The 52-year-old said.
Cross, who doesn’t work because of her back and knee ailments, was scrapping about $ 200 a month in aid and anything she could make from bottle and can recycling. Her gas and electricity bills were chewing her check. She went in and out of the emergency room, her doctor told her she might have to take a colostomy bag, and depression was worsening her day by day.
Courtney Gauche listened and began to help. The LA County caseworker helped get the household supplies for the cross so she could save money and cover her utility bills. She offered to get a new bed to soothe her pain. She began to associate Cross with programs to alleviate her depression and get rid of cigarettes, which Cross has long struggled to do.
“I think I’ve found a friend here,” Cross said, sometimes with tears in her eyes as she picked up the caseworker who was coming for her. In her apartment in South LA Duplex, in the throng of box fans, she suddenly remembered a question she had forgotten to ask Gauche during their regular conversation.
“How did you get my name?” Cross asked.
The answer is an unusual operation of data analysis to try to shut down the homeless before it starts.
Cross LA County is part of a rare effort to marry predictable modeling – A tool used to predict events by tracking patterns in current and historical data – with deep personal work of homeless prevention.
Cross, left, with Vanderford and Gouché.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The county has found the scores of Cross and others through predictive tools developed by UCLA investigators, which extracts data from eight LA county agencies to help outreach workers focus their attention and help people at serious risk of losing their homes.
LA County has struggled to keep up with the number of homeless people annually, although it has stepped up efforts to bring people home. Finding out who to help is important because millions of residents seem insecure but still avoid being homeless, said Jenny Rowntry, founding executive director of California policy law at UCLA.
“You never have enough money to provide prevention for everyone who appears to be at risk,” Rowntry said. “You really need another strategy to find out who is really going to be homeless if they don’t get immediate help.”
Researchers have found it surprisingly difficult to predict who will move into homelessness and who will ignore it: in a report released three years ago, the California Policy Laboratory and the University of Chicago Poverty Laboratory said a decent prediction requires at least 50 factors – and that’s the best. The model will require “somewhere between 150 and 200”.
The prediction model used in LA County uses an algorithm that includes about 500 features, according to the UCLA team.
It pulls data from eight county agencies to indicate who to assist, looking at a wide range of data on county systems: who has landed in the emergency room. Who are in jail. Who is suffering from a psychiatric crisis who has been hospitalized. Who has received cash assistance or food benefits – and who has listed the county office as their “home address” for such events, is an indicator that most of them were homeless.
Roundtree and his team discovered that when it began to use such models to identify those at high risk, “they were not the people enrolled in the usual homelessness prevention programs.” As of 2020, the UCLA team found that fewer people identified by its predictive modeling – less than two dozen in two years – were receiving services to prevent homelessness, especially under the LA County Sales Tax, Measure H, approved by voters.
So the county decided to call them. In July, the newly formed Homeless Prevention Unit began reaching out to people at high risk through a model predicting cold-blooded residents like Cross. UCLA analysis is performed with data removed from identification details, which the county matches with the name and information to find potential customers.
This work is ongoing in the LA County Department of Health Services for Health Housing, Which focuses on the homeless and vulnerable patients. Individuals in the program may receive financial aid and referrals to other services to help maintain their overall health and housing. Single adults receive assistance of up to 4,000 or 6,000 and families receive an allocation depending on their size; The program is analyzing whether higher amounts make a difference in results.
For Anthony Padilla Cordova, “it was the right time” when the call came in February. “I didn’t know where I was going.”
Padilla, 29, was out of state prison at the time of the epidemic and was trying to stay away from alcohol and drugs. After being re-arrested for drinking, he was eventually rehabilitated and moved to a quiet home, he said. But his life still felt insecure.
Many of his family friends, battling his own addiction, seemed to be “still stuck in the prison mentality,” he said, and Padilla was worried that if he lost his cool and got into a fight with someone, he would be kicked out. Padilla started working as a preparation cook and dishwasher, but did not get his driver’s license back, which means it can take hours by bus to get to work in Irvine.
Fabian Barajas said he could help. The caseworker arranged for the paddle to cover the costs of the breathalyzer that had to be installed and activated in the vehicle before it could legally drive again. She received gift cards to cover her daily expenses, such as groceries. He gave her clothes and shoes to wear to work.
And “if I feel like losing hope … I have Fabian I can call,” Padilla said.
Case managers work with each participant for four months, although they can extend that period Two more months if necessary. As the four-month program draws to a close, Padilla is now living in her own studio in MacArthur Park. He is restrained. He has a license again. And he has enough money in his car for down payments, Brajas said.
“Things look good – as long as you stay calm and calm,” Barajas told him during a recent meeting Tuesday.
Padilla reflected on the support he received from the county and other programs. “If I didn’t have any of these resources, I would probably be homeless,” he said.
About 150 people have gone or are currently attending the LA County event. It started with $ 3 million in funding – half from Measure H, half from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation – and soon raised about $ 14 million in federal money under the U.S. Rescue Plan, which would allow the program to run until 2024, Dana said. Vanderford, Assistant Director of Homeless Prevention. Its staff, once a “small and powerful team of seven,” will soon expand to 28, including 16 case managers, Vanderford said.
So far, about 90% of the participants have maintained their accommodation while at the event, Vanderford said. Rountree and his team are still evaluating how such results compare to similar people who do not participate in the program, which will help determine whether it is a success or not.
But based on past patterns and analyzes, it is estimated that the first 54 people participating in the program had a 33% risk of becoming homeless if the program did not exist and when analyzed “the world was exactly like that”. Was done, Routledge said.
Still, “the world can change. So we need to do a full causal study,” she said.
At first glance, the cross may seem like a surprising candidate for homelessness prevention. She has a housing voucher for her South LA unit. He is not fighting for eviction or rent increase. But Cross is already homeless – and without the help of Gauche and the program, she’s worried about the choice between food and electricity bills.
“If he doesn’t come, I’ll just sit here and say, ‘Do I need to do this, or do I need to do this?’ Cross said. Now “I don’t have to worry if I’m going to recycle enough this month.”
In the front room of her house, sitting next to a television stand adorned with elephant statues, intended to bring good luck, postcards depicting a trip to the island of Catalina and a Bible in a book of psalms, she and Gauche talked through their next steps.
They discussed getting a new bed and pillow to ease her back pain; Concerns raised by Cross about “nothing to play with”; Her discomfort from the many pills recommended to her, which she feared might lead to another addiction.
Cross also wanted to quit smoking, saying it was costing him money that he could not afford. Gauche offered to get her phone numbers for smoking cessation programs, as well as additional resources that could help her with mental health and substance use problems.
Cross shook his head. “Everything can be tried at least once,” she said. “If it works, I’ll continue.”
Anger and depression had earlier sent her to smoke, she said.
Gauche said, “The big thing is your awareness – you just said – of how you cope with difficult situations.”
Programs can help raise that awareness and help her find other ways to cope, she said.
“You’re definitely on the right track,” she told Cross.