Empirical analyses of the social safety net

Chapter 1: Food Pantry Policies and Nutritional Quality: Applying the Healthy Eating Index to Food PantriesFood pantries are a significant source of food support for families suffering from food insecurity in Minnesota, but studies have found shortcomings in the nutritional quality of the bundles of food that food pantries provide to their low-income clients. While other studies have identified several barriers that may prevent food pantries from improving the nutritional quality of their food offerings, none have considered the food pantries’ response to these barriers – that is, the policies that the food pantry may institute to improve the nutritional quality of the food they distribute to clients. This chapter evaluates the relationship between food pantry policies and the nutritional quality of food orders, using United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Healthy Eating Index (HEI) scores calculated based on invoice data from two large Minnesota food banks (the largest food suppliers of Minnesota’s food pantries), paired with food pantry survey data on their internal policies and priorities. I find that, when the HEI is disaggregated into its 12 component scores, several of these sub-scores are significantly higher among food pantries that reported nutritional quality as their top priority in ordering food, controlling for a variety of food pantry characteristics and other policies. In addition, this chapter shows the importance of disaggregating the HEI score for analysis, as food pantry policies often relate differently to different sub-scores. Consequently, analyzing only the composite HEI score can mask a considerable amount of heterogeneity in the relationship between food pantry policies and the nutritional quality of their offerings. Chapter 2: The Impact of a Randomized Information Intervention on Food Pantry Nutritional QualityIn the US, food pantries can be an important source of food support for families struggling with food insecurity. Yet extant studies have found nutritional quality to be lacking in food distributed by food pantries, whose staff often face several obstacles to providing nutritious foods, including the higher cost of higher-quality food and their limited control over food donations. Food pantry ordering managers, many of whom are volunteers or part-time employees, may have limited knowledge or resources to determine the appropriate mix of foods to provide a balanced diet for their clients. This study uses a randomized controlled trial design to evaluate the impact of an information intervention on the nutritional quality of food pantry food orders. For 12 months, treated food pantries received monthly feedback that scored the nutritional quality of their orders, showed how their scores compared to those of their peers and their own prior scores, and provided recommendations about how to improve their scores. The overall measure of nutritional quality was not significantly affected by the information intervention. The intervention had a small but statistically significant impact on a composite score of fruit and vegetable components during the fall quarter. Chapter 3: The Relationship Between Violent Criminal Backgrounds and Success in Affordable HousingEx-offenders face numerous barriers to re-entry into society upon their exit from incarceration. These barriers often include difficulty being accepted into rental housing, a challenge that fuels a self-reinforcing cycle of homelessness and incarceration. Many rental properties have restrictive tenant screening criteria that limit the eligibility of ex-offenders, especially those with violent criminal convictions. From the perspective of the housing provider, given the dearth of information about how different applicant backgrounds translate to successful tenancies, it may make sense to err on the side of more restrictive screening criteria. This chapter aims to shed light on the issue, using data on the criminal backgrounds and housing outcomes of over 10,000 tenant households that rented from four Minnesota-based nonprofit affordable housing providers between 2010 and 2017. Focusing on violent criminal backgrounds, I analyze how several different types of backgrounds relate to a household’s likelihood of experiencing a negative housing outcome (such as lease violations and nonpayment of rent), how those associations change over time, and how they vary across different subgroups of tenants. The results point to some potentially significant relationships between violent criminal backgrounds and housing outcomes, although they also indicate substantial heterogeneity in these associations (across types of violent criminal backgrounds, across subgroups of tenants, and over time).

Author dc:creator

• Warren, Cael

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/11299/278111

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:conservancy.umn.edu:11299/278111