Data & Research
The Housing Innovation Lab
The Housing Innovation Lab is a new initiative at the Housing Collective which enhances our collective impact work towards housing, equity, and opportunity through the ideation, design, and implementation of digital tools, products, and services. The lab’s goals are to utilize both analytical methods and software engineering to analyze both population and systems level outcomes, identify opportunities for enhanced impact, and design innovative, technology-based solutions for residents, practitioners and policymakers.
The lab focuses on three primary focus areas: property technology, digital innovation, and impact evaluation. Our property technology projects relate to developing tools that streamline access to housing for homeless and low-resourced clients. Our digital innovation projects aim to create standards for housing data aggregation as well as mixed media techniques for increasing housing literacy. Finally, our impact evaluation projects aim to assess and measure the outcomes and impact across all of the Collective’s activities and consult on collaborations with external partners as needed.
The Innovation Lab is guided by national experts in housing and social innovation. Our advisory council consists of faculty members and researchers from UTHealth School of Public Health, the Yale School of Medicine, the Yale School of Management, the Yale School of Public Health, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Profiles of our advisory council:
Dr. Jack Tsai is the Campus Dean and Professor of Public Health at UTHealth, and Research Director for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans. He has received federally funded grants and published over 200 peer-reviewed articles on topics related to homelessness, severe mental illness, trauma, and health disparities.
Dr. Erica Spatz is a general cardiologist and a clinical investigator at the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE). Her clinical and research interests include the development of individualized approaches to preventing and managing cardiovascular disease, along with tools to help patients become more active in their healthcare decisions.
Tony Sheldon has been executive director of Yale School of Management’s Program on Social Enterprise and lecturer in the practice of management since 2008. He teaches practicum courses on social entrepreneurship, in which student teams work with organizations in India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, and other countries. Tony’s professional background is in international development.
Dr. Danya Keene is an Associate Professor of Social Behavioral Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health. Her research examines housing and housing policy as determinants of population health equity. Moving beyond a focus on housing and individual health, her work considers how an ongoing history of racially discriminatory housing and urban policies have constrained housing access for non-white Americans, and thus contribute to racial health equity.
Dr. Erin Graves researches housing and other policies that impact the people living in disadvantaged neighborhoods. She has published her work in Housing Policy Debate, Journal of the American Planning Association, City & Community, New England Community Developments, and Communities, Banking. Erin also manages the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Visiting Scholar program.
