The Pitfalls of Personal Judgment

(Illustration by iStock/PeterPencil)

As a nonprofit professional with over a decade of experience working in homelessness programs and currently working in homelessness prevention, I’ve often heard coworkers describe how a person in one of these programs reminded them of a close relative or friend. Of course, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with these kinds of empathetic connections. Indeed, a sense of familiarity can lead to increased trust and attachment. Yet it can also create space for bias: familiarity can be derived from a variety of factors—the words someone uses, their background, conjugation, or even eye color—but it’s often connected to culture, ethnicity, and/or traditional access to social capital. In this sense, the phrase “case by case basis” can indicate situations where a case manager’s individual discretion can show bias by that exact sense of familiarity and comfort.

To offer the best and equitable service, practitioners should develop a heightened self-awareness. Supervisory evaluations in the sector generally entail reviews of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and key performance indicators (KPIs); by the same token, practitioner self-evaluations usually focus on outcomes and outputs. Neither tend to provide the space for self-reflection on the role a practitioner’s discernment plays in the outcomes for program participants. For this reason, it is imperative that practitioners critically examine who they go above and beyond for, and why.

Consider two hypothetical applicants for a financial assistance program geared toward homelessness prevention. First, imagine a woman impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, college-educated, laid off by a tech company, and running out of savings. Now, imagine a woman escaping domestic violence, with a baby on breathing tubes in a hospital, only a few days away from homelessness. Both might qualify for the program, and so, service providers might ask who deserves it more, who has a more easily solvable situation, or who advocated for themselves more articulately and painted a better picture. Without an appropriate framework for the decision, bias could creep into the decision. Particularly in such circumstances, inexperienced staff members might fail to consider who is more vulnerable or in a more precarious situation. Likewise, a case manager may succumb to “availability bias,” favoring actions that require less effort on the case manager’s part and prioritizing the low-hanging fruit of easily solvable success.

Without diagnostic controls, nuanced biases can skew a case manager’s priorities. This can range from the “Halo Effect”—which means overestimating the positive attributes a program participant can have, such as someone trying to get back into gainful employment—to its opposite, the “Horn Effect,” which means overestimating a subjectively negative attribute. Further, without systems in place, referrals from an influential source (whether it be a funder, a friend, or a political presence) may create expectations to streamline a new program participant to the top of the list. Cultural biases may influence how a case manager views situations: Cultures with multigenerational households might view "couch surfing" as having secure housing, while other cultures may see this as homelessness. At its most egregious, the absence of a systematic prioritization system can create space for quid pro quo service: Without adequate expectations around tracking, case notes, or case conferencing, a case manager can develop offline arrangements that can result in favors, kickbacks, and manipulation.

Eligibility Requirements and Prioritization Platforms

Eligibility serves as a baseline in terms of qualification, and when resources are extremely finite, prioritization ensures that those with the least access get served immediately. A National Low Income Housing Coalition study found that out of the 500+ emergency rental assistance programs launched during the pandemic, fewer than 70 prioritized applicants beyond general eligibility. With a finite amount of resources, a “first come first served” problem can bring the digital equity gap into play, such that those without fast or stable internet may be the last to get the necessary information. This is not how we should expect support to look and feel: It is critical to prioritize those who are the most likely to fall into homelessness in terms of urgency, vulnerability, and intersectional barriers toward self-sufficiency.

For practitioners serving the dire needs of marginalized demographics within a community, the stakes are even higher and the problems become even more systemic. For example, racist land-use policies, discriminatory covenants, redlining, and historic, exploitative economic exclusion have disproportionately impacted Black and Brown households. In Oakland, California, not only has the Black population dwindled down by nearly half since the 1990s, but (according to Alameda County’s most recent Point-In-Time Count), Black people make up 23 percent of the population but 60 percent of the unsheltered population. Using race as a variable for a prioritization metric is a highly sensitive issue, with many legal considerations surrounding it, but a microcosm of these aforementioned systemic issues can be captured in the results of distressed zip codes. The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project shows which neighborhoods are seeing losses of housing assistance programs, increases in unlawful detainers, evictions, transfers of ownership, and very clearly overlays how foreclosures compare to historical redlining, a straightforward cause and effect of systemic racism.

Beyond systemic racism, situational circumstances—pregnancy, youth within the household, significant rent burden paired with extremely low income, extremely low income—must be taken into consideration of future risk. Annual point-in-time data by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development indicates that about one-quarter of families who have experienced homelessness once will succumb to it again.

In a system where resources are finite, a variety of factors must be taken into consideration to maximize impact: whether an applicant checks multiple boxes, susceptibility to recidivism in the reentry system, ability to work, leaseholders, and, finally, those with access to sufficient documentation (IDs, income verification, etc.). This is financial stewardship and equity at work to further sustainability for households at risk of falling into homelessness.

Weighted Prioritization

Implementing weighted prioritization tools allows assistance programs to quantify specific attributes, which collectively creates a “score” translating to overall need, based on many factors. This approach is not always common in homelessness prevention or financial assistance programs, but without a weighted prioritization tool—and appropriate screening controls—all well-meaning assistance programs may have severely inequitable practices. In contrast, assistance programs with platforms that consider neighborhood, vulnerability, housing situation, extreme low income, and precarious circumstances, are equitably able to prevent homelessness for those most likely to succumb to it. Programs with such weighted prioritization tools provide clear parameters equipping staff to easily triage program applicants to other services and community support.

In many cases where an applicant has significant need and challenges around stabilization, there is a need to explore interventions outside of financial support. An application process that ascertains vulnerability level can gather information that will help staff triage to other services and resources. Through triage assessment, case managers are able to distinguish the type of intervention that is most needed, and to narrow the possibility of bias. It allows questions to be answered like:

• Is this someone currently unhoused or at risk of becoming unhoused?
• Are they at risk of losing housing within 30 days or after 30 days?
• Is this a case of displacement (needing to leave their home due to financial insecurity), homelessness prevention (at risk of not having a home entirely), or diversion (addressing the need of someone who just lost their home)?

With enough unpacking, these kinds of questions can sometimes open up ways to provide a solution that does not require funding: reunifications, employment support, legal aid, housing navigation, etc. This approach can also clarify how financial support can best address the root of the issue, instead of its byproduct, and, in some cases warrant a longer term of support, where prioritization is necessary. On one hand, practitioners need to immediately focus on the most vulnerable applicants with the most time-sensitive issues, while pinpointing the most troublesome barriers to support underlying issues and ensure sustainability post-intervention. Some examples of barriers include eligibility requirements around other assistance programs, eviction notices, and experiences living in unsafe environments.

In conversations with those with lived experience, as well as consistently reviewing data from past applications, it’s easy to draw parallels on shared experiences to find proxies that lead to certain levels of susceptibility. By incorporating a feedback loop of diverse perspectives at the design stage and partnering with organizations that have successfully launched prioritization platforms, there is a greater likelihood of developing equitable platforms.

But the biggest challenges around implementing such programmatic standards are usually based on funders’ understanding or restrictions around what they can fund. It's also necessary to educate local government and philanthropists about these systems, as well as the importance of selecting applications based on equitable strategies.

Monitoring and Evaluation

A dashboard system that allows system users to aggregate and disaggregate data and evaluate supports given and further informs baseline expectations, as well as processing rates. Capturing this information enables practitioners to adjust outreach strategies for penetrating harder-to-reach populations. After all, it can be hard to measure who is served, how long they were served, reasons why some households were ineligible, where referrals may be coming from, or anything else that can highlight shortfalls and inform future program design. For that reason, it’s important to be specific about intended results outside of just tracking money spent and households served and to track what measure of prioritization points (or calculation of impediments that perpetuate precariousness) receive what level of service. Some households that are scored at a higher prioritization level may require more financial resources and longer-term support, which can be able to plan for when there is an understanding of what their vulnerability is in advance.

A Call to Action

It's crucial to become equity-focused organizations, as well as stewards of the public and private dollar, and without making these changes, organizations can find themselves perpetuating the inequities already woven into the status quo. Here is the call to action:

1. As recommended in Policy Links “A Road Map Toward Equity,” encourage regional leadership to develop and invest in the regional housing bonds that can fund homelessness prevention efforts in your community.
2. Urge providers as well as funders to make the prioritization process necessary and informed of local terrain, trends, experiences, and unaddressed gaps. To ensure that those with the most severity are served first, assemble those with lived experience, policy experts, and practitioners to weigh in and create a process that adequately addresses the needs of your community.
3. Invest in bias training for staff. Even with a prioritization tool in place, it’s hard to systemize for every circumstance where a judgment call is needed. By training staff to understand their lens and outlook on life, they can be more aware of what informs their decision-making and act accordingly.

Read more stories by Logan McDonnell.