The University of Notre Dame announced today that its will serve as the national evidence partner for , a new cross-sector initiative led by to stop homelessness before it starts. LEO will provide the research backbone for the initiative — working alongside pilot communities to generate rigorous evidence, measure outcomes and share what is learned to strengthen and scale homelessness prevention nationwide.

Backed by $77 million in new funding support from various benefactors, Right at Home aims to keep more than 10,000 households at high risk of homelessness stably housed in 10 pilot locations across the country over the next five years. By scaling an evidence-based prevention model, Right at Home sets out to prove that homelessness prevention works and is replicable nationwide, building the case for national prevention policy and funding.

Across the country, homelessness rates are rising, and housing costs continue to strain renters. Half of American renters are unable to afford their housing costs, and economic pressures are pushing more people into crisis every day. Once someone becomes homeless, challenges compound quickly, making prevention a critical component of any meaningful response.

Right at Home builds on a that provides and case management to support families on the brink of losing their homes, but before they become unhoused, and takes it a step further by expanding that model across the country. That model was spearheaded by Destination: Home and in Santa Clara County, California, and evaluated by LEO researchers.

“We have a moral obligation to take evidence to impact,” said , interim managing director and head of policy and impact at LEO. “When we find strong evidence that something is effective, it’s not enough to publish a result. We have to make sure that evidence gets used by replicating and scaling what works, so communities across the country can benefit.”

LEO’s study found that individuals who received financial assistance through Santa Clara County’s Homelessness Prevention System were significantly less likely to become homeless even a year later. The model also demonstrated strong cost effectiveness, with LEO researchers finding that every $1 invested saved almost $2.50 in benefits to the community.

By intervening earlier, this approach has helped nearly 44,000 people locally avoid the profound trauma of homelessness and has reduced the need for far more costly public interventions after housing has been lost — such as shelters, emergency healthcare and other crisis services.

“The single most obvious solution to homelessness is stopping it before it starts, yet our country continues to respond only after people fall into crisis,” said Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home. “We have proven that targeted homelessness prevention works locally, and now it’s time to prove that this can work all across the country. We should never let people, in the worst moments of their lives, suffer even more.”

In the U.S., most homelessness intervention programs only focus on responding to individuals and families once they have already lost their housing, with far fewer efforts aimed at targeting them early enough to prevent the loss of housing in the first place. The result is a backlog of overwhelming needs and cascading issues. Right at Home and its partners are hoping to intervene at a crucial turning point in the individual and family’s life in order to bring the right amount of help at the right time. LEO’s expertise will step in to provide evidence to impact.

The 10 pilot communities covered by the initiative include cities, counties and tribal nations, and represent areas with varied economic conditions and housing markets, including both rural and urban regions. Communities were selected based on showing urgent need, spanning diverse geographies, demonstrating strong on-the-ground and cross-sector collaboration and offering clear pathways for future local public-private investment.

So far, Right at Home community partners include Alaska (Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness); Asheville Region, N.C. (Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care); Atlanta, Ga. (Partners for HOME); Austin-Travis County, Texas (Ending Community Homelessness Coalition); County of San Mateo, Calif.; Denver-Adams County, Colo. (Metro Denver Continuum of Care); Miami-Dade County, Fla. (Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust); and Minnesota (Minnesota Tribal Collaborative Pathways to Housing), with two additional locations to come.

To stand up the Right at Home support systems locally, organizers will rely on the Homelessness Prevention System Toolkit, co-developed by LEO, Destination: Home and . This toolkit provides the technical assistance foundation for testing and adapting this model in all the selected locations. Right at Home, in conjunction with technical assistance partner , will use it to implement this approach in the new contexts while building the evidence base for national policy change.

Each Right at Home replication site will provide flexible financial assistance to address immediate needs such as rent, utilities or other urgent housing-related costs. It will also include supportive services such as legal assistance or other interventions that help remove barriers to housing stability, all of which will be delivered through local community partners and systems. Assessments will also be conducted to ensure families are connected to the appropriate Right at Home assistance and that needs are matched accordingly. Each pilot site will receive a minimum of $5 million over three years to stand up their local program.

Working with Right at Home and the pilot communities, LEO will test and rigorously evaluate the impact of rapid, flexible financial assistance, and inform the case for a national prevention policy.

“We already have strong evidence that targeted prevention can keep people housed,” said , LEO director of research. “Right at Home is a chance to take those results to impact at a national scale. By working alongside communities, we can learn what it takes to deliver strong outcomes in different places — and share what works so leaders can strengthen and sustain prevention over time. Most importantly, we can help more people stay housed before a temporary crisis becomes homelessness.”

LEO's work aligns with Notre Dame's , a University-wide effort to create a world intolerant of poverty by expanding knowledge about how to solve it.

The Right at Home initiative is supported by a coalition of cross-sector partners, including , , Notre Dame’s LEO, and . To date, Destination: Home has secured $77 million in funding to support the Right at Home initiative. Funders include — a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED that encourages the world’s greatest changemakers to dream bigger — Cisco, Sobrato Philanthropies and the Valhalla Foundation.

The Right at Home initiative anticipates all pilot sites to begin implementation by January 2027, with some sites starting as early as this fall.

, a public-private partnership working to end homelessness, leads the Right at Home initiative. Through a collective-impact model, the nonprofit convenes and collaborates with community stakeholders to address the root causes of homelessness and drive systemic change in Silicon Valley and beyond. Using a data-driven, human-centered approach, Destination: Home advocates for effective policies, incubates new programs and invests in strategies that connect more homeless neighbors to stable housing and prevent homelessness before it begins.

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu

The University of Notre Dame’s (LEO) is working with Catholic Charities Fort Worth (CCFW) and Goodwill Industries of Michiana to replicate CCFW’s Padua program in the Michiana region — marking the first-ever Padua mission site in the nation.

Goodwill Michiana’s launch is a major step in a broader effort to expand evidence-based poverty-reduction models to more communities. Through its partnership with Franchise for Good, LEO is applying franchising principles to help evidence-backed programs like Padua expand while protecting what makes them work.

Created by CCFW and named after St. Anthony of Padua — the patron saint of the poor — Padua aims to move clients permanently out of poverty by providing them with intensive, wrap-around case management services. The Padua program uses a client-led, long-term and research-driven approach to redefine traditional case management.

The program was rigorously evaluated by LEO to test the impact of Padua on labor market and other outcomes. Using a randomized controlled trial, a group of more than 400 program participants, only 40 percent of whom were employed upon enrollment and whose income placed them at about two-thirds of the federal poverty line.

LEO researchers found that through the Padua program, participants were 25 percent more likely to achieve full-time employment — while also reporting significant improvements in overall health and well-being. The intervention was particularly effective for those not employed at enrollment. For this group, the intervention led to a 67 percent increase in the probability of working full-time and a 46 percent increase in monthly earnings. Those who lacked stable housing before enrollment were 64 percent more likely to secure stable housing.

In the years since the study, LEO has worked alongside Catholic Charities Fort Worth to translate those findings into a model that can be replicated with integrity. That work focuses on identifying the program’s core components and supporting partners to implement them with fidelity as Padua expands to new communities.

"Padua shows what’s possible when evidence, dignity and partnership come together,” said , LEO co-founder and director. “We have evidence this program works, and replicating it through trusted partners like Goodwill Michiana is how that evidence can improve lives far beyond where it began.”

Bringing Padua to Michigan and Indiana represents a significant expansion of Padua’s research-backed, holistic approach to ending poverty, extending its reach beyond North Texas to empower more families on their path to lasting stability. The launch of the Padua mission site in Michiana underscores a shared commitment to advance proven, compassionate solutions that empower individuals and families to achieve more for their futures.

“Padua was built with a vision to meet people where they are — a client-led program that honors human dignity, builds emotional resilience and delivers real results,” said Brendan Perry, director of Padua National at . “Taking this research-backed model beyond Fort Worth for the first time marks a major step in our mission.”

, a respected leader in workforce development and community services, will be the first organization in the nation to replicate the Padua model — bringing its people-first approach and strong community infrastructure to families across the region.

“We are excited to launch the nation’s first Padua mission site right here in our region,” said Debie Coble, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Michiana. “This partnership empowers families with personalized support so they can build lasting stability and independence, and truly achieve their most abundant lives.”

Padua pairs each client with a dedicated two-person navigator team who provides personalized, judgment-free support in areas such as housing, employment, education and health. Unlike traditional programs, Padua has no time limits — navigators walk alongside clients for as long as it takes to reach stability and independence.

With a case management staff that works to meet every individual where they are, clients are equipped to tackle both personal and financial challenges, learning how to manage resources, set boundaries and maintain accountability. They are empowered to use the skills and tools they learn to change their trajectories and make their way to a better future.

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu

Poverty has fallen by 27 percentage points since 1980, according to new research from the University of Notre Dame, the University of Chicago and Baylor University. This change is in sharp contrast with official U.S. Census Bureau numbers indicating that poverty has fallen a mere 1.5 percentage points in that time.

Using consumption poverty instead of income poverty as their measurement tool, the researchers found that poverty rates declined steadily between 2020 and 2022, a period when income-based poverty fluctuated noticeably.

These findings were recently released in the , co-authored by , professor of economics and director of the at the University of Notre Dame; , the McCormick Foundation Professor at the University of Chicago Harris 91��Ƶ of Public Policy; and Jeehoon Han, assistant professor of economics at Baylor University.

Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey and the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, the researchers challenge common misconceptions created by the official government poverty data. According to the researchers, consumption, which measures what families are able to purchase in terms of food, housing, transportation and other goods and services, offers a better indicator of economic well-being than income, which can fluctuate for reasons unrelated to well-being.

Between 1980 and 2022, consumption poverty fell from 33.8 percent to 6.0 percent, even though the official poverty rate indicated a drop by only 1.5 percentage points over that same period.

The researchers identified three key factors contributing to the disparity between consumption and official poverty metrics: flawed adjustments to the federal poverty line to account for inflation, reliance on a narrow definition of income, and biased measures of family resources.

“Our poverty estimates, based on how much people consume, are a much stronger indicator of well-being for the most vulnerable than those based on income,” Sullivan explained. “Government surveys miss many income sources that are important to those struggling to make ends meet, and income varies for many reasons that are unrelated to well-being.”

The researchers’ report further disputes the notion of a sharp decline in poverty in 2021 followed by a substantial rise in 2022. Consumption poverty patterns did not exhibit such fluctuations. Instead, consumption poverty declined steadily during recent years while income poverty fluctuated dramatically, the co-authors noted, reiterating that the patterns for income poverty overstate changes in economic well-being.

“Annual income will not reflect the standard of living of individuals who smooth consumption by drawing upon savings or by borrowing,” the researchers said. “This distinction is particularly relevant when income is fluctuating significantly, as was the case for families with few resources during the pandemic due to sharp changes in employment and sporadic cash transfers.”

“There is evidence that families saved more in 2021 in response to the third round of the temporary stimulus payments and the expanded child tax credit,” Sullivan explained, “which resulted in a more stable pattern in consumption poverty.”

In addition, while many pundits have argued that the 2021 fall and 2022 rise in income poverty is largely due to the child tax credit, the researchers’ findings show that other factors explain much of this pattern.

“While the child tax credit played an important role, the primary reason income poverty was sharply lower in 2021 than in the preceding and following year was because of the economic impact payments (or stimulus payments) paid out in 2021,” Sullivan said.

Using their consumption-based measures, the co-authors found that over the past six decades poverty in America was reduced not only through tax rate cuts and tax credits, but by the expansion of other anti-poverty programs as well. Increases in Social Security benefits have helped, as has the impact on earnings due to greater educational attainment. Overall economic growth in the country has also played an important role in the sharp decline in poverty, the researchers concluded.

Sullivan, Meyer and Han release updated consumption-based poverty reports annually to coincide with the Census Bureau’s report, offering the latest, closest-to-real-time data. Explore these reports, along with poverty rates, visualization tools and additional resources, at .

��DzԳٲ�����:��Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu