This resource examines the nature and causes of family homelessness and outlines approaches that communities are pursuing to provide homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing. Family homelessness is a widespread problem and is driven largely by the inability of very low-income families to afford housing. Housing stability can greatly improve a family's chances of success in employment, education and health. This paper reviews family homelessness on a national level and includes specific information to the District of Columbia metropolitan region.

This article reviews community prevention strategies that reduce the number of homeless people in local areas. Best practices included targeting through control of eligibility screening, developing community motivation, maximizing resources, fostering leadership, and ensuring access to data systems to track progress.

This brief reviews poverty and housing issues in rural America. Issues include affordability, quality, and access to mortgage loans. Approximately 5.2 million, just under one-quarter of rural households pay more than 30 percent of their monthly income for housing costs.

From the National Alliance to End Homelessness, this article reveals that when asked, many Americans underestimate the problem of homelessness in the U.S. This piece reviews best practices on strategies to reduce family homeless from Washington, D.C.; Columbus, Ohio; Hennepin County, Minnesota; Westchester County, New York; Massachusetts; and New York City.

Since welfare reform, there has been a significant decrease in food stamp participation, especially among families moving off welfare. Authors suggest that the low participation may be tied to the fact that families who are able to meet the food needs of their families are unlikely to apply for benefits. This paper offers a new approach to help encourage participation among working families.

Barbara Devaney, Laura Kalb, Ronette Briefel, Teresa Zavitsky-Novak, Nancy Clusen, Paula Ziegler, authors. Features articles related to this study that Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. conducted for Gerber. The Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (FITS) provides a wealth of data on the food and nutrient intakes, background characteristics, growth and development milestones, and feeding patterns and transitions for a nationally representative sample of infants and toddlers.

Authored by Carole Trippe, Liz Schott, Nancy Wemmerus, and Andrew Berwick. This study examines the experiences of four States--Arizona, Louisiana, Missouri, and Ohio--that use the simplified reporting option of the Food Stamp Program; Arizona also uses the transitional benefit option. States reported reduced staff workload, improved client access, and reduced quality control errors with simplified reporting but faced some operational challenges that made realizing the option's full potential difficult.

Authored by Anne Gordon, Heather Hartline-Grafton, and Renee Nogales. Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides supplemental food, nutrition education, and health and social service referrals to low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women, as well as to infants and children younger than five. This study describes a range of innovative practices at 20 State or local WIC agencies focusing on breastfeeding promotion and support, nutrition and health education, and service delivery. For each program, the report provides background information and discusses the source of the innovation, key challenges, implementation lessons learned, evidence of success, and the feasibility of replication.

Authored by Craig Gundersen, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Iowa State University; Dean Jolliffe, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service; and Laura Tiehen, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. This report, as part of the Working Paper Series of the National Poverty Center (NPC), explores variation in State policies and data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to analyze food insecurity rates between Food Stamp program participants and non-participants.

This resource, through Mathematica Policy Research, reviews State food stamp participation rates to measure the effectiveness of the food stamp program and the program's ability to reach its target population.