An Advocate For Dignity and Housing

While people around the world struggled with the upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Yale School of Public Health student Leah Robinson made things a little better in the city of New Haven.

Robinson, a New Jersey native enrolled in the M.P.H. program, used her extensive experience working with those facing homelessness or housing insecurity to help residents of the Elm City overcome their situations in the midst of a long public health emergency.

“Public health is about preventing things before they happen,” she said. “This independent study responded to an immediate need for data. It wasn’t a project that could wait.”

Her inspiration for the independent study project with New Haven’s Columbus House—a nonprofit organization providing emergency housing and related support for individuals facing homelessness—stemmed from her previous experience working in the New York City Department of Homeless Services. Robinson worked on a number of projects related to homelessness and health and hoped to get involved in related research upon starting her M.P.H.

While taking EPH 507 (Social Justice and Health Equity), a class taught by Associate Professor Danya Keene, Ph.D., in the fall of 2020, Robinson was inspired by one of Keene’s research studies on informal housing arrangements. This led Robinson to work on a project where she conducted in-depth interviews with housing-insecure individuals living temporarily in hotels in the New Haven area to learn about the experience compared with their previous living situation. She wanted to examine the differential aspects of each environment and how they affected residents’ well-being, physical and mental health, and ability to move from their current living situation into permanent housing.

Robinson not only designed and conducted an entire qualitative study, but also produced an extensive report that is now being used by Columbus House to inform its

homeless assistance programs and advocacy work.

“I talked to people there about what it was like to move from a congregate shelter or unsheltered living situation into a hotel. There are so many barriers that people who are living in congregate shelters or on the street face in taking care of their health, maintaining privacy and security, and establishing a sense of stability. The hotels helped with that,” she said.

Through her research, Robinson found that all of the people she spoke with at the hotels were grateful for what seemed like luxuries: having a refrigerator or a place to store their possessions and keep them safe. Another aspect of the research that still resonates with her: the small things that made a big impact on someone’s quality of life. In hotels, for instance, the absence of inconveniences—such as having to leave the premises during the day—were the aspects that made a huge difference to their well-being.

Keene said Robinson rose to meet the need by designing and completing an entire research project in the span of one short semester and said her interviews captured the depth and nuance of a complicated situation.

“Not only did they speak to the benefits and remaining challenges of hotel housing, her participants’ perspectives and experiences offer valuable insights that can inform other aspects of housing and homelessness policy,” said Keene.

In addition to preparing a report for Columbus House, Robinson is completing an academic paper on her findings for submission to a journal.

After graduating next year, Robinson wants to continue working at the intersection of public health and housing. She might want to work for a government agency and further engage disadvantaged communities. She also hopes to continue research on factors affecting the availability of affordable housing.

“The study aimed to better understand the experiences of those who moved into the hotels from congregate shelter or unsheltered living situations during the pandemic to better inform future housing policy and advocacy,” she said.