The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ASCP) selected Troels Adrian (MCRP 2010), to receive the Edward McClure award for the Best Master's Student Paper for his paper, “Funding Supportive Housing in Georgia: Inspiration from Other States." The paper compares four state policies aimed at funding supportive housing in an effort to identify promising approaches for funding supportive housing in Georgia. Adrian pursued this project in Spring 2010 in the Tech course, CP6033: Government and Markets, taught by associate professor and author of Foreclosed, Dan Immergluck.   

According to Adrian, he pursued the topic because he was involved in supportive housing development before entering Georgia Tech. "I have seen firsthand how effective this innovative policy format has been in resolving one of the most intractable problems of modern American society," he said. "I wanted to suggest a way for Georgia to become an innovator in this field, particularly because of the rural homelessness problem we have in this state."

This is the second time a Georgia Tech student has received the Edward McClure award since its inception in 1985. Stan Fitterman (MCP 1988) was selected in 1989 for his thesis, "Mortgage Lending Patterns in Metropolitan Atlanta: 1982-86," prepared under Larry Keating's direction.

The following is an abstract for Adrian's paper, with a link to the full paper below:

Supportive housing is a relatively new model for alleviating homelessness with evidence of significant success in most places it has been implemented. It is clear that the current level of funding for supportive housing in Georgia is insufficient to meet the needs of the homeless population, particularly in rural areas. This is not only a social policy problem: homelessness greatly taxes criminal justice and emergency health systems, which are funded by fiscally strained local and county governments, and supportive housing has been shown in reputable studies to reduce these costs by close to a 1:1 ratio. This paper compares four current state-funded programs in New York, Connecticut, North Carolina and California, and the author utilizes these four comparison policies to suggest a funding framework for the state of Georgia that, while sensitive to political feasibility concerns in a predominantly conservative state, could significantly expand the role of state government in reducing homelessness.

Read "Funding Supportive Housing in Georgia: Inspiration from Other States."