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The Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Program (HVRP) aims to help veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness find stable employment by providing career training, job placement, and support services through a case management approach. The Chief Evaluation Office in the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), in collaboration with DOL’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS), contracted with Mathematica and its subcontractors, the Urban Institute and Social Policy Research Associates, to complete a mixed-methods evaluation of the program. The evaluation consisted of two studies: (1) a study of the impact of HVRP on participants’ outcomes and (2) a complementary study of how grant recipients implemented HVRP.

The impact study estimated the effect of HVRP on participants’ employment and earnings relative to similar veterans experiencing homelessness but who did not participate in HVRP. Both groups sought employment assistance through the Wagner-Peyser Employment Service during the same time period (July 2019 to June 2021). The study estimated effects on employment and earnings for two years following program enrollment, a time heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This report presents findings from the evaluation’s impact study, which compared the employment and earnings outcomes for HVRP participants with the outcomes of similar veterans who experienced homelessness but did not participate in HVRP. Both groups were enrolled in the Wagner-Peyser Employment Service at an American Job Center. Mathematica conducted the analysis using data from 11 locations—10 states and the District of Columbia—that agreed to provide the information needed to obtain administrative earnings records for measuring study outcomes. The analysis includes veterans experiencing homelessness who received services between July 2019 and June 2021 (in program years 2019 and 2020). Findings from the evaluation’s implementation study, which this report draws on to help interpret the impact findings, are presented in Batko et al. (2022) and Johnson et al. (2022). The key finding of the impact study is that HVRP participation increased employment and earnings during the first year after program enrollment but did not lead to longer-term impacts.

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Research Questions

• What was the impact of enrolling in both HVRP and the Wagner-Peyser Employment Service relative to enrolling in only the Wagner-Peyser Employment Service on:
  • Employment in the eighth quarter after program enrollment?
  • Average earnings in the seventh and eighth quarters after enrollment?
  • Quarterly employment and earnings over the two-year follow-up period?
• Did the impacts differ for:
  • Participants who began receiving HVRP services before and after the onset of COVID-19?
  • Participants with different characteristics (age, sex, education, recent employment experience, and county unemployment rate)?

Key Takeaways

• HVRP participation had no effect on employment and earnings in the seventh and eighth quarters after program enrollment. The estimate of HVRP’s impact on eighth-quarter employment and on average earnings over quarters seven and eight is not statistically significant.
• HVRP participation increased employment during the quarter of program enrollment and the following three quarters. HVRP participants were 6 percentage points more likely to be employed than the comparison group during the quarter in which they enrolled in the program, and they were 6 to 9 percentage points more likely to be employed in the first three quarters following enrollment. Beginning in the fourth quarter, the effects were no longer statistically significant.
• HVRP participation had positive and statistically significant quarterly earnings impacts of $400 and $300 in the second and third quarters after program enrollment. Over the first year, on average, HVRP participants earned $267 more per quarter than the control group.
• The pattern of employment impacts is consistent with findings from the implementation study, in which HVRP grant recipients reported that they helped participants find jobs quickly and provided services primarily over the first year after job placement. HVRP participants also reported in interviews that job placements were not always desirable, possibly affecting longer-term employment rates. The one-year performance period of HVRP grants during the first year of the study may also have incentivized rapid job placements over better job matches.
• Some evidence suggests larger and more persistent employment effects for those who enrolled in HVRP before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic than for those who enrolled after the onset. The smaller impacts for the post-pandemic group likely reflect the unique service environment the group faced at the time of program enrollment and may not be representative of the possible impacts of HVRP for this cohort in the absence of the pandemic.
• The study team found no evidence that impacts differed for groups defined by participant demographic and county characteristics. There were no statistically significant differences in the short- or longer-term impacts of HVRP across participants grouped by sex, age, education level, recent employment experience, or the unemployment rate of their county of residence.

Research Gaps

• The study results should be interpreted in terms of the study’s focus on earnings and employment outcomes. Even though HVRP provides employment-related services, the program model also connects participants to available housing and health care services in local areas. Thus, HVRP may affect a broader range of participant outcomes that the study did not address.
• Future research could consider how the change from the one-year performance period to the three-year performance period affected the types of jobs that participants found. The shift in the model may have allowed programs to develop strategies that prioritize a better alignment between job placements and participant skills and interests, perhaps improving program effectiveness. The current study was not able to address this question because the shift to the funding model coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Future research could conduct a comprehensive benefit-cost analysis to assess whether HVRP is a sound investment from the social, taxpayer, and participant perspectives. For example, if the costs of HVRP per participant were relatively low, earnings impacts in the first year after program enrollment that fade out by the second year could result in total earnings gains that are larger than the costs of the program. Such an analysis would ideally compare program benefits associated with the full range of outcomes (including housing and health outcomes) to full program costs (including the costs of HVRP operations as well as differences in costs of other services received by HVRP participants and the study comparison group).

Citation

Johnson, M., Wagner, J., Schochet, P., Spitzer, A., Kress, P. (2024). Mathematica. Impact of the Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program on Employment and Earnings Outcomes. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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