Background

Homelessness is a risk factor for family involvement with child welfare services (CWS). Housing interventions are promising—but reasons for this are not well understood, and housing resources could be better targeted to families at risk of increased CWS involvement.

Objective

We sought to better understand the relationship between homelessness and CWS involvement and examine whether homeless shelter data could combine with CWS data to enhance intervention targeting.

Conclusions

We find mixed evidence that shelter use independently leads to CWS involvement. Housing interventions might help by addressing present housing problems and family experiences correlated with past shelter use. However, we find no evidence that data matches with shelter systems could enhance targeting.