Lauren Dunton

For 15 years, Lauren Dunton has been working in homelessness, housing, workforce, and education research at Abt. As an experienced Project Director, Dunton manages research and technical assistance projects for a range of federal agencies and foundation clients. She has expertise in qualitative data collection and analysis, including coordinating and conducting site visits and managing the collection of site-level administrative data.

Dunton’s experience at Abt is extensive. She is the Project Director for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Family Options 12-Year Study. That project is conducting a 12-year follow-up study of the families that participated in the Family Options Study to assess the long-term impacts of receiving housing assistance. She also is working on Abt’s evaluation of California’s Project Roomkey (PRK) program. For the project, Dunton led the development of the evaluation’s research design and data collection plan, is interviewing stakeholders involved in county PRK programs, and is conducting site visits to counties to visit PRK programs and conduct interviews with people who participated in PRK. As Abt’s project director on HUD’s Exploring Homelessness Among People Living in Encampments and Associated Costs, Dunton was the lead author on the nation’s first report on homeless encampments and has become a sought-after expert on the subject.

Expertise

• Project leadership and management
• Qualitative research, including instrument design, data collection and analysis
• Conducting implementation studies
• Implementing random assignment evaluations
• Designing and managing web-based surveys
• Providing site-based and remote evaluation technical assistance

Key Projects

• Evaluation of the Emergency Housing Voucher Program (2023-present)
• Colorado Statewide Homelessness Landscape Assessment (2023-present)
• Family Options 12-Year Study, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2021-Present)
• Project Roomkey Program Evaluation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and the California Health Care Foundation (2021-Present)
• How TANF Agencies Support Families Experiencing Homelessness, HHS Office of Policy, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) (2017–2021)
• Exploring Homelessness Among People Living in Encampments and Associated Costs, HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy and Evaluation (ASPE) and HUD Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) (2018‑2020)
• Understanding Rapid Re-housing, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2016–2020)

Publications

• Dunton, L., Yetvin, W., Fiore, N., & Kwan, C. (2023). From Policy to Practice: Responses to Homeless Encampments in Los Angeles. The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.
• Dunton, L., Sierks, C., Kumar, N., & Glosser, L. (2022). Supporting Families Experiencing Homelessness: Strategies and Approaches for TANF Agencies. OPRE Report No. 2022-02. Washington, DC. Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
• Dunton, L., Khadduri, J., Burnett, K., Fiore, N., & Yetvin, W. (2021). City Approaches to Encampments and What They Cost. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Washington, DC.
• Khadduri, J., Dunton, L. & Brown, S.R. (2021). Understanding Rapid Re-housing: What Did We Learn? U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Washington, DC.
• Jefferson, A., Dunton, L., Thomas, H., Mahathey, A., & Khadduri, J. (2021). Understanding Rapid Re-housing through Participant Experiences. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Washington, DC.
• Fiore, N., Dunton, L., Khadduri, J., Wilkins, C., & Ng, B. (2020). Implementing the Los Angeles County Flexible Housing Subsidy Pool: Strategies and Lessons Learned. Report prepared for Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.