A Human-Centered Review of Algorithms in Homelessness Research

Homelessness is a humanitarian challenge affecting an estimated 1.6 billion people worldwide. In the face of rising homeless populations in developed nations and a strain on social services, government agencies are increasingly adopting data-driven models to determine one's risk of experiencing homelessness and assigning scarce resources to those in need. We conducted a systematic literature review of 57 papers to understand the evolution of these decision-making algorithms. We investigated trends in computational methods, predictor variables, and target outcomes used to develop the models using a human-centered lens and found that only 9 papers (15.7%) investigated model fairness and bias. We uncovered tensions between explainability and ecological validity wherein predictive risk models (53.4%) focused on reductive explainability while resource allocation models (25.9%) were dependent on unrealistic assumptions and simulated data that are not useful in practice. Further, we discuss research challenges and opportunities for developing human-centered algorithms in this area.Comment: In CHI '24 Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Honolulu, HI, US

Where can I find services that will help me meet my basic needs?: Developing a geospatial tool to support college students experiencing basic needs insecurities

College students in California are unable to meet their basic needs for survival, leaving students across the state without consistent access to food, housing, and health care. Emergency programs and services, both public and private, exist on most college campuses to address students\u27 basic needs. Unfortunately, due to the stigmatization of basic needs insecurities and a lack of widespread knowledge about these services, students who need help meeting their basic needs are not connecting with the programs and services on campus that can help them. This dissertation contends that college students experiencing homelessness, housing insecurity, and food insecurity would benefit from the use of a mobile application that assists users in finding and accessing on-campus and off-campus services, such as housing services, food services, health care services, financial services, personal care services, and LGBTQ+ student services. Using the frameworks of design science research, public participatory GIS, and critical GIS and tools such as Esri\u27s QuickCapture, Esri\u27s Web App Builder, React Native Listings, Termly, ATLAS.ti, Qualtrics, and Google Forms, this dissertation illustrates the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of a model of a mobile application, the Campus Cares Community App, that connects student users with basic needs services. The dissertation includes a literature review of all of the studies conducted on college students\u27 experiences with basic needs insecurities in the U.S. and California and a review of the public policies shaping college students\u27 experiences with basic needs insecurities. The literature review shows that despite the increased empirical examination of college students\u27 experiences with basic needs insecurities in recent years, there have been few uses of geospatial tools, methods, or artifacts to support research about this topic or development of solutions to address this problem. Geospatial methods can help researchers to document, describe, and analyze data about students\u27 experiences with basic needs insecurities because these conditions are experienced geographically. Many applied geospatial tools can be useful in addressing this problem because these tools provide user-friendly, cost-effective methods for connecting people with other people, locations, and institutions. In addition, the dissertation presents a comprehensive explanation of the iterative process of designing and developing a model of a mobile application in consultation with important stakeholders and potential users, such as students and staff who work with students experiencing basic needs insecurities. Three iterative cycles were performed, during which processes such as: reviewing existing tools to support service navigation, collecting information about software and applications for designing the application, selecting and testing multiple programs and applications, creating a model of an application showing proof of concept of the idea, brainstorming ideas for the app with potential users, naming the application, and developing a template of the application occurred. The evaluation of the model of the mobile application employed the System Usability Scale (SUS) and five open-ended questions to assess the usability of the application. The five participants who responded to the survey containing the SUS and the evaluative open-ended questions found the Campus Cares Community App to be usable and useful. The participants also shared ideas for improvements and revisions to the application which can be applied in future iterative cycles. A mobile application to support students experiencing basic needs insecurities is feasible, usable, and beneficial. College administrators can consider implementing the Campus Cares Community App on their campuses as an additional instrument of mitigation to support students experiencing basic needs insecurities

Travelling an unfamiliar road: Implications for the entry of design practitioners into healthcare

This thesis reflects on the User Experience design practice employed for the HealthMap project to create online interactive self-management plans for people with HIV. It traces the development of collaborative design understanding within the multidisciplinary team and identifies key elements in the development of a healthcare IT design practice that lay the foundation for an emerging Community of Practice for Healthcare Experience Designers

Values and Self-Presentation in Online Communication by Stakeholders Related to Homelessness

Values are guiding principles of what we consider important in our lives. They shape, and are shaped by, our information behaviors and interactions with technology. Design approaches that explicitly consider values can change the affordances of resulting technologies. This dissertation extends research related to values and information technology use and design within the social context of homelessness, a value-laden social issue in the United States. This study used both quantitative and qualitative content analysis to examine the values expressed in online communication (specifically, the 140-character posts on Twitter known as "tweets") by individuals who identified as homeless in their Twitter profiles. They were compared to the values expressed in the tweets of other stakeholders related to the issue of homelessness, including support organizations and homeless advocates, as well as a comparison group of individuals who did not identify with homelessness in their Twitter profiles. A key contribution of this study is an empirically tested coding manual for identifying salient values of Twitter users through their tweets. The application of this coding manual to Twitter users' timelines of tweets helped to characterize the ways in which values emerge from online communication, highlighting differences between the values expressed by individuals and organizations on Twitter. The study also showed how Twitter users' self-presentation of their online profiles relates to their expressions of values. These findings show how the role of values in one's self-presentation online leads to important implications for the design of sociotechnical systems and for raising awareness about the intersection of technology use and homelessness in the 21st century. These insights are necessary for understanding information technology use by individuals who are relevant but often absent from the development of new information technologies