Just Infrastructure? Field Research on a Standardized Assessment Tool for a Continuum of Care for People Experiencing Homelessness

Abstract

As community-oriented programs move from intervention to infrastructure, questions of just and equitable access to that infrastructure both arise and become more consequential to those served. However, extant tools are general in scope, often undertested, and inconsistently linked with positive outcomes for served communities and service providers. We explore the dynamics and implications of a key tool within this infrastructure intended to enable portable collaboration across organizations serving those who are experiencing homelessness: the VI-SPDAT (Vulnerability Index -Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool). This tool, while providing a means of coordinated assessment, must itself be negotiated according to the values, data concerns, and goals of the agencies and service providers who make use of it. This paper reports findings from 29 interviews with individuals working in nonprofits, charities, and government agencies that provide services or resources to people experiencing homelessness within the City of Austin's Continuum of Care. The life-and-death stakes of the VI-SPDAT, which is designed to prioritize access to services based in part on a prediction of potential for premature mortality, drive home the need for equitable and just infrastructure.

A feeling for the data: How government and nonprofit stakeholders negotiate value conflicts in data science approaches to ending homelessness

“…These themes, while relevant to our understanding of the site and important in developing our interpretation of further data, did not adequately serve to inform the next planned phase of our team's overall project, and its intended data scientific intervention. To do this, we returned to a consequential instrument that served as both a point of contact for data collection and a means of prioritizing services based on prior research regarding risks to health and safety, which we had briefly discussed in terms of infrastructural justice (Slota et al, 2021).…”

“…This project builds on the City of Austin's prior work in making better use of its data. The CoC uses various data‐collection tools to prioritize service to people experiencing homelessness, most notably coordinated assessment of vulnerability through a tool known as the VI‐SPDAT (Slota et al, 2021). Our collaboration seeks to develop knowledge‐driven, AI‐based, interventions and insights.…”

From Communities of Practice to Smart and Connected Communities: Information Sharing Practices Among Social Service Providers

“…Another published set of themes revolved around the impact of time and temporality on the viability, utility, and efficacy of data (Slota et al, 2022). A third set of themes was oriented towards a close evaluation of a consequential instrument that served as both a point of contact for data collection and a means of prioritizing services based on prior research regarding risks to health and safety, which we had briefly discussed in terms of infrastructural justice (Slota et al, 2021). In this paper, we report themes related to interactions among social service providers, social service users, and the community, based primarily on data from questions that we have not previously reported, and connect these findings to the literature on information behavior.…”