Lessons from HUD about building evidence on important social policy issues: An interview with Calvin Johnson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research, Evaluation and Monitoring at HUD – Episode #179

Gov Innovator Podcast

How can public agencies build credible evidence about what works to help move the needle on important social policy challenges? It’s often a multi-step, iterative process. A good example is the efforts across the past two administrations by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) – in particular, their efforts to help support public housing residents to access higher education.

This example has a specific policy focus — higher education access – but the steps that HUD has taken to build evidence provides lessons for any public agency, whether federal, state or local, that is working to tackle important policy issues and using evidence to inform their decision making.

To learn more, we’re joined by Dr. Calvin Johnson. He’s the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research, Evaluation and Monitoring within the Office for Policy Development and Research (PD&R) within HUD. He is a leader within the federal evidence community and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Additional information: Read about HUD’s work with the Office of Evaluation Sciences to design low-cost behaviorally informed interventions — letter, in this case — to encourage FAFSA enrollment [link].

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