Duke University student Elizabeth Kelly spent the summer of 2006 as a housing policy intern in the national office of Catholic Charities USA. During her internship, Elizabeth spent a considerable amount of time working on homelessness issues. In reaction to this experience, Elizabeth returned to Duke last year and wrote a paper focusing on the damaging effects of homelessness on children. The paper argues that preventing childhood homelessness would be far more socially beneficial and far less costly than only providing families with housing assistance once they become homeless.

NPACH agrees. We believe that the HEARTH Act - HR 840 - provides local communities with the flexibility they need to best assist children and youth at risk of homelessness, and we hope that readers of this paper will use it to make the case for HEARTH - and for additional investment in preventing young children from becoming homeless.

Read the paper

NPACH thanks Elizabeth Kelly for allowing us to publish this paper.