Current Projects
Advancing Local Governance through a Homelessness Cost Analysis
Partner: OC United Way
Funding: John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation
In 2017, Orange County United Way (OCUW) and Jamboree Housing commissioned the University of California, Irvine (UCI) to produce “Homelessness in Orange County: The Costs to Our Community.” The report proved that placing individuals into permanent supportive housing could reduce public costs by nearly 50%, an evidence-based finding that fundamentally reshaped how local government and philanthropy address homelessness.
The original Cost Study set in motion transformative governance and system changes. In the eight years since the first Cost Study, the homelessness landscape has evolved significantly. Orange County has seen major policy innovations, including the introduction of CalAIM (California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal), through which CalOptima Health has invested more than $230.5 million to assist 87,500 members with housing navigation, deposits, and tenancy supports. The Homelessness Cost Study Update will quantify the current costs of homelessness, measuring the return on recent public and private investments, and evaluate which interventions yield the highest cost savings and stability outcomes. In addition to the research findings, the project will develop governance dashboards that translate research results into actionable visual tools for policymakers, demonstrating how coordination or fragmentation within local systems affects outcomes.
Volunteer Engagement and Workforce Pathways for the Irvine Ranch Conservancy
Partner: Irvine Ranch Conservancy
Funding: Irvine Ranch Conservancy and School of Social Sciences, UC Irvine
This collaboration with the Irvine Ranch Conservancy is aimed at advancing two important pipelines in support of the IRC’s mission: fostering greater volunteer engagement by understanding what matters to volunteers and why; and fostering the next generation of conservation and stewardship professionals. A mixed-method assessment framework measures volunteer motivations, satisfaction, and retention using surveys, interviews, and analytics. Combining behavioral data with qualitative insights, researchers will identify engagement drivers to inform management strategies. They will develop a data-informed engagement model to enhance volunteer experiences and organizational impact. This will feed into the structuring of student internships so that students can appreciate community motivations for supporting the work of the IRC.
Meaningful training with Orange County's leader in land management builds bridges to often-overlooked career pathways; deepening volunteer engagement ensures lasting community support for the stewardship of this important resource.
AI Evaluations for Local Democracy
Partner: Alliance for Local Leaders, International (ALLIES), Institute for Engineering AI for Society, Henry Samueli School of Engineering, UC Irvine, School of Social Sciences, UC Irvine
Funding: Institute for Engineering AI for Society (proposals also submitted to Mozilla Foundation and Social Science Research Council)
AI Evaluations for Local Democracy is a collaborative project to study municipal chatbots for public services and to co-develop evaluation tools and democratic engagement indicators for such chatbots together with municipal stakeholders. The deployment of AI chatbots for public services has outpaced evaluations of their accuracy, use, and impacts on civic understanding, engagement, and inclusion. This project will convene local government stakeholders and the research team to assess municipal chatbots and develop democratic engagement indicators for them. The deliverables include traditional evaluation rubrics as well as automated ones to ensure that municipal AI chatbots truly empower those they are intended to serve, and, in the process, strengthen civic belonging and democratic engagement.