Housing Stability for School Success Toolkit
Housing stability matters for a child’s mental and physical wellbeing, educational success, and connection to a community. Involuntary displacement leads to greater material hardship for families, poorer health and avoidable healthcare costs for children and their mothers, and negative impacts on children’s academic achievement. Children who experience housing instability can have lower vocabulary skills, grade retention, higher rates of drop-out, and lower educational attainment as adults.
Launched in spring 2021, Housing Stability for School Success is a collaboration between the Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL) and Dallas ISD to reduce student middle-of school year moves through campus-based housing interventions. The work began as an action research project focused on elementary schools with high rates of middle-of-year moves and located in neighborhoods with historically high eviction filing rates.
Since fall 2021, CPAL has implemented family-centered solutions at two pilot campuses, Elisha M. Pease and J.N. Ervin Elementary Schools, in partnership with school staff and housing-focused nonprofit organizations. CPAL has worked to scale interventions district-wide and bring data to the center of decision-making. Although the toolkit was built based on a pilot project with Dallas ISD, the featured interventions can be implemented in any school or district context.
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CPAL Partner Spotlight: Dallas College
What happens when a college system turns data into action?
- In this CPAL Partner Spotlight, we explore how Dallas College partnered with the Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL) to better identify and support student parents — an often-overlooked group facing barriers to completing their education.
- By integrating CPAL’s data analysis with Dallas College’s holistic Student Care Network, the college was able to identify 8,500 student parents supporting more than 25,000 children — and connect many of them with public benefits, wraparound services, and long-term opportunities for economic mobility.
- "CPAL helped us ask the right questions—and the ripple effect is now touching veterans, foster youth, dual credit students, and more."
Mayor's Task Force on Safe Communities
This 2019 report provides recommendations on non-law enforcement solutions to crime and violence in Dallas.
- Philadelphia’s blight remediation program reduced firearm assaults by 39%--a relatively low-cost intervention that is backed by empirical evidence that can be implemented in Dallas.
- New York’s targeted lighting pilot reduced nighttime index crimes by 36% and generated a 3x ROI. This can be replicated in Dallas by using tower lighting or expanding LED lighting in micro-geographies with high incidence of crime and low lighting.
Dallas’ $200 Million (Housing) Question
CPAL’s assessment of rental affordability in Dallas is informing conversations about public investment in affordable housing.
- As of 2021, Dallas had a 33,000+ unit gap in affordable rental housing. Without action, this shortage of affordable housing units is projected to nearly triple to 83,500 units by 2030.
- Families with 4+ people are particularly vulnerable: there are 50 three-bedroom units affordable for every 100 households at or below 50% AMI, dropping to 15 three-bedroom units affordable for every 100 households by 2030.