Research

An ongoing research project examines how nonprofit organizations conceive, justify, and administer interventions targeting homelessness and poverty in America. Several in-progress article manuscripts draw on data from over 150 interviews with nonprofit leaders in dozens of American cities, representing all 50 states and Washington, DC.

A new project focuses on nonprofit-led, master-planned villages, which constitute an emergent paradigm of homelessness relief. The project will blend interviews with village leaders and administrators, ethnographic site visits, and other sources of data to answer questions at the intersection of housing, organizations, ideas, and inequality.

In prior work, I have written about organizational and street-level dynamics that impact people experiencing homelessness, living in poverty, and/or trying to overcome drug addiction:

• “Does ‘Social Infrastructure’ Curb Drug Addiction? The Role of Local Institutional Norms.” Theory and Society.

• “Risky Ties and Taxing Ties: The Multiple Dimensions of Negativity.” Qualitative Sociology.

• “We Can Help, but There’s a Catch: Nonprofit Organizations and Access to Government-Funded Resources among the Poor” (with Andreja Siliunas and Mario L. Small). Journal of Organizational Ethnography.

• “The Fleeting Moment and the Long Haul in Urban Panhandling.” Ethnography.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss any of this work or if you are interested in exploring research collaborations.