Consider This from NPR - Using AI to Combat Homelessness

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

One of the main challenges to countering homelessness is to figure out who's most at-risk of losing their homes and getting them the resources they need. Now, in a first-of-its-kind experiment, Los Angeles is using artificial intelligence to help make those predictions and keep people in their homes.NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports on the program and meets people who are benefitting from this new use of AI technology.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. More at iu.edu slash forward. Fighting homelessness is not just about finding safe places for people living on the streets right now. It's also about reaching out to people before they've lost housing. What are the creative solutions three steps before the full-blown emergency? That is Sean Reed with Friendship Place, a nonprofit that helps unhoused people in Washington, D.C. He told NPR last year that a little bit of help at the right time can keep someone from slipping into homelessness in the first place.

Things like paying a parking ticket, getting a driver's license reinstated, or a car repaired. And if you can do an $800 car repair that keeps them in work that is then able to pay the $2,000 a month rent, you've addressed the issue earlier on at a lower cost. This idea is a cornerstone of the Biden administration's approach to homelessness. Jeff Olivet heads the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which helped craft that plan. He says prevention should be done in a systematic way, focused especially on those most vulnerable, people who are leaving prison, addiction, or mental health treatment, foster care. At those critical moments of transition, we have an opportunity. We know where people are. We could bridge that inpatient or incarceration or foster care experience straight into housing.

It does not have to result in shelter or living in a tent. But there are lots of people struggling to hold on to housing who don't fit into any of those categories. People for whom a few hundred dollars or a few thousand could be the difference between a bedroom and a car or a tent. So how do you find them? Consider this. A pilot program in Los Angeles County is using artificial intelligence to identify people most at risk of ending up on the streets. Then step in before that happens. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. It's Monday, October 9th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies.

Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University drives discovery, innovation, and creative endeavors to solve some of society's greatest challenges. Groundbreaking investments in neuroscience, climate change, Alzheimer's research, and cybersecurity mean IU sets new standards to move the world forward, unlocking cures and solutions that lead to a better future for all. More at iu.edu slash forward.

This message comes from Wondery. Kill List is a true story of how one journalist ended up in a race against time to warn those on the list whose lives were in danger. Follow Kill List wherever you get your podcasts. It's Consider This from NPR. Homelessness numbers in Los Angeles keep going up despite massive spending on the problem. So the county is trying a first-of-its-kind experiment in prevention. NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports. Last year, Dulce Volantin and her partner Valerie Zayas were getting desperate.

They'd both been involved with gangs, had met in prison, and were over the moon happy to have found love. But Dulce had bad bouts of mental illness. Valerie was hustling temp jobs. They'd slept in their car, then lost it. Stayed too long with family. Dulce says they donated plasma and sold some of their clothes to pay for motels. You know, you stay at a motel room for three days is more than $200. You know

what I mean? And it's like my seventh day, you don't have anything in your pocket no more, no food, no this, no that. And it was a very long struggle. Eventually, Valerie says they rented just a bed at a place on Venice Beach. It's like a motel, but it's dormitory-style living. So we were there for a while. That's where they were when Dulce's mom told them she'd gotten a phone call. Something about homelessness, she said, and a program to help you. Dulce was skeptical. Sounds kind of shady, you know. I mean, I don't know.

It doesn't sound real to me. But that call was real. It was from the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, where Dana Vanderford helps lead homelessness prevention. A pilot program tracks data from seven agencies. Emergency room visits, crisis stabilization holds for public benefits like food aid. Then, using machine learning, it comes up with a list of those thought to be most at risk for losing their homes. Vandervoort says these are mostly people not part of any other prevention program. We have clients who have understandable mistrust of systems, have experienced generational trauma. Our clients are extremely unlikely to reach out for help. So 16 case managers reach out to them with letters

and cold calls. Elizabeth Juarez is cheerful and patient. She knows it can take a minute to process what's happening. She explains the program, how it offers a case manager to work with people for four to six months and figure out how to spend $4,000 to $6,000 in aid. That's money not given directly, but to third parties to cover bills. Like rent, utilities, groceries, other kind of month-to-month expenses. It's a win just to connect with someone. The program never reaches about half the people on its list. Then some turn down the offer. They say others need it more. Some have already lost housing. Juarez says that's hard to say. Sorry, this is for prevention only. We can't help you. On this call, the man mentions he's renting from a relative and recently had a seizure.

And yes, he'd like to sign up. Well, thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. You too. Juarez says rent isn't always the most urgent problem. She's used the money for payday loan debt, appliances, laptops, and recently an e-bike as someone's main mode of transportation. We discuss how is your living situation? appliances, laptops, and recently an e-bike as someone's main mode of transportation. We discuss how is your living situation? So while somebody might be physically housed, is it safe in there? Do you have a bed? Do you have what you need in your home to thrive and feel stable? Los Angeles is housing more people than ever, and it's building lots more

low-income housing. But it still can't keep pace with the ever-rising number who end up in tents, cars, shelters. Leaders here say prevention is the only way, and that includes going out to meet these people at risk. Case manager Fred Theus greets a new client at his house. Ricky Brown is 65. He was a handyman who injured his back and had been getting by on his own, barely, until his ex-wife died a year ago. She'd been raising their three grandsons, so he took them in. Now there's bunk beds in the living room,

where 11-year-old Zaire is hanging out with his phone. How was your day? I'm good. How's your day? I'm good. How have you been? What did you do today? Did a lot of math. Math? Ricky says his daughter and her husband lost custody long ago because they're addicted to pills.

It's been tough for him financially, especially after he and the boys got cut off from food aid. Why, he has no idea. Now he's in the hole on rent and utilities. I had a little money put away, but boy, did I tell you if I went through it, you know, because these kids eat. Theus, the case manager, thinks the cutoff may be a paperwork snafu. Ricky also needs car repairs, and he really wants a two-bedroom for the boys. Getting a bigger place will be tough, though,

given his low income from Social Security and odd jobs. Ricky says he's blessed with this program, but at night, it doesn't keep his mind from racing with a thousand worries. I might have to lose them, or, you know, we're going to be on the street. That's the main thing I think about is the street, or come home, ain't no lights on something. You know, I stay worried about a lot of stuff every day. The ultimate goal of LA's prevention program is to keep people housed long term, and they don't know yet if it does. Will

this little bit of time and money be enough? Are they targeting the right people, those who would actually end up on the streets, but for this help? Janie Roundtree heads the California Policy Lab at UCLA, which developed this AI prediction tool. For example, here in Los Angeles, you might have 2 million people on public assistance, all of whom seem vulnerable, but only 1-2% of them will ever experience homelessness. In just over two years, the program has worked with 560 people, and most have stayed housed, but Roundtree is doing a more formal, long-term study. She'll have results in 2026, which is when the program's funding runs out, most of it's from pandemic aid. She hopes there will be a strong case that it should

be scaled up and can be a model for other places that want to do this, like San Diego County. For Dulce Valentin and Valerie Zayas, it has meant a world of change. They show off their apartment and little dog Zoe to their former case managers. It's a cozy space with family photos and inspirational quotes on the walls. Slowly but surely, we started decorating the place because there came furniture. They were lucky to get a rare housing subsidy. Valerie says the stability helped her land a good job with the transit system. I have a clear head. I know she's okay.

I don't have to worry about where our next meal is going to come from. Across the street is a park where people live in tents, and Dulce says it always makes her think. We always help people out there. We give them whatever we have in our pockets, food, anything that we could, because we know the situation. And it hurts our heart for people being out there. We know, she says, that without all that help appearing from nowhere, we could have been right out there with them. NPR's Jennifer Ludden reporting there from Los Angeles. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. On the TED Radio Hour, clinical psychologists John and Julie Gottman are marriage experts.

And after studying thousands of couples, they have found... Couples who were successful had a really different way of talking to one another when there was a disagreement or a conflict. How to be brave in our relationships. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR.