U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research. A Guide to Evaluating Crime Control of Programs in Public Housing. Washington, DC: Prepared for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development by KRA Corporation; 1997.  pp. 1.2-1.4

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Benefits of evaluation

Evaluation measures performance. As a public housing administrator, you want to measure program performance. Evaluation provides tangible evidence that you are putting resources into programs that benefit residents. More importantly, it helps you direct those scarce resources to support programs that work. Evaluation is also just as useful to determine what doesn't work in a program and provides information you can use to improve your current efforts.

Evaluation demonstrates program benefits to funding sources and to the community. If you have a violence prevention program that works, you should share this success with funding sources, residents, and the community at large. The public or private agency or foundation that funded this program will want to know that it is supporting a successful project. Additionally, this information can be used to attract other potential funders. Agencies also often require programs to measure performance or provide information on program results, service quality, and customer (resident) satisfaction.

In addition, evaluation can provide useful information on the impact of the violence prevention program to a variety of audiences who are in the position to support your efforts, such as State and local officials, local law enforcement agencies, neighborhood associations, and community leaders. Evaluation will give you the evidence you need to obtain support for your program. You can use results to solicit funds from other funding sources, to support a request for additional funds to expand the program, or to justify offering the same program in another location.

Evaluation can help improve your program's effectiveness. Another benefit of conducting a program evaluation is that the findings will help you improve your program. You will be able to say with confidence that changes or improvements in the program are directly related to your program's evaluated intervention(s).

Evaluations create an opportunity to share information about what works with similar agencies. If you have a program that has been shown through evaluation to be effective, you can share this valuable information with other public housing agencies. You will have documented evaluation findings that show that the program design succeeded. Other agencies of similar size, in similar environments, will be able to replicate your program knowing that it works.
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Using Evaluation Results: One Example

A funder provided $40,000 in seed money to implement a midnight basketball program for boys and girls ages 16 to 20 residing in public housing. Surveys were administered to the youths both before and after the program was implemented. The survey findings showed that prior to the program:

  • 92 percent of the youths surveyed reported they expected to get into some kind of trouble in the next 3 months.
  • 66 percent of the youths thought they would be victims of violent acts during that same period.

Following implementation of the basketball program:

  • 20 percent of the youths surveyed stated they expected to get into some kind of trouble.
  • Only 5 percent of the youths expected to be crime victims.

Evaluation of the midnight basketball program revealed a 78 percent reduction in the juvenile offender crime rate among youths 16 to 20 years old in the precinct where the public housing development is located.

The primary reason the youths gave for their survey responses was that having a midnight basketball program gave them something positive to do. Community residents were also surveyed and responded that they felt both their community and their children were safer because of the midnight basketball program.

The summary findings above could be used to demonstrate to residents and the community at large that this program was successful in preventing and reducing violence. The midnight basketball program administrators could also present the facings to the city council to justify a request for continued funding.

An evaluation can provide you with information on the process of implementing the program as well as the outcomes. Other public housing agencies will be able to benefit from lessons learned during your program implementation phase and the subsequent evaluation.