For the fall 2021 semester, our POSC 395 Policy Research Internship students researched homeless services and prevention for women in Los Angeles. This project required students to take a look at current available services, prevention strategies, and needs of women experiencing homelessness. Students researched funding streams as well as federal, state, and local policies while taking a look at the intersectionality of domestic violence and homelessness. They presented their extensive research and policy recommendations for best practices in the future to our partner, Downtown Women’s Center (DWC).

Kelly Sadikun, a sophomore majoring in Political Science, said this about her research experience: “I worked with Downtown Women’s Center to conduct research on ways the unaccompanied woman sector within LA’s unhoused population can be better assisted. Entering a post-COVID world, with its deep-rooted structural issues exposed, gives us all hope for expanded governmental acknowledgement of unaccompanied women’s needs, improved tele-health accessibility, and increased alternative housing construction projects. My team and I were so honored to collaborate with DWC to increase education about the historically invisible unaccompanied woman group.”

Project: An Analysis on Homeless Services and Prevention for Women in Los Angeles

USC Students: Sophie Credo, Teya Hisel, Michelle Li, Patrick Oslund, Kelly Sadikun, and Atharva Tewari

Research Question: How can DWC better assist the unaccompanied woman population in Los Angeles?

Policy Recommendations:

• Participate in local housing lawsuits and federal lobbying.
• Designate unaccompanied women as a distinct subgroup.
• Incorporate cultural inclusivity in Housing First programs.
• Support AB 328 and target advocacy for formerly incarcerated women.
• Develop a hotline for women in federal housing to register verbal and physical abuse.

Read the group’s full research presentation.

Watch the video presentation on Homeless Services and Prevention for Women in LA.