Listening Sessions with Older Americans
Project Background Older Americans encounter challenges aging in place due to various factors, such as limited access to healthcare, inadequate housing options, and social isolation. Federal policymakers want to hear about what older Americans need, especially Americans in underserved parts of the country. To address this, the Interagency Coordinating Committee on Healthy Aging and Age-Friendly […]
New York City Collaborative Design Partnership
Project Background The City of New York has made a commitment, through its investment in the Service Design Studio in the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYC Opportunity), to improve policy making and service delivery through the use of human-centered research, design, evaluation, and implementation methods. As part of this investment, PPL is partnering with […]
Reticketing for Asylum Seekers
Project Background New York City has provided compassionate care for more than 210,000 asylum seekers since 2022. The city, with a desire and obligation to provide shelter for newcomers, is experiencing severely strained resources as it attempts to house over 120,000 people in its shelter system. One option available to asylum-seekers is reticketing, a service that […]
Prevention Pathways
Project Background New York City offers free, voluntary services for families struggling with economic scarcity, parenting, mental health concerns, substance misuse, family conflict, and domestic violence. Year after year, families that participate in prevention services continue to have strong results–among families with the greatest level of need, children were far less likely to experience maltreatment […]
Increasing Rental Access for Unhoused Youth & Young Adults
Project Background Insecurely housed youth in New York City face significant challenges in finding housing. In 2021, only 4% of youth and young adults who exited runaway homeless programs moved into an apartment. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted existing support services and exacerbated systemic inequities in housing access among unhoused youth and young adults, especially for […]
Soul Care
Project Background Young people with experience in foster care, who are primarily black and brown people of color, often experience complex trauma prior to entering foster care, while in care, and when transitioning out of care—yet many cannot access the type of culturally responsive, long-term mental health and wellness support they desire. Existing systems and providers […]
Rental Assistance through People-Informed Design (RAPID)
Project Background The federal Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, commonly known as Section 8, is the nation’s largest tool for providing affordable housing. Under this program, families pay approximately 30% of their income toward rent, and the government pays the remainder of the rent directly to the property owner. While vouchers are in high demand, […]
Shelter from Harm 2
0 Staff and Survivors 0 + Findings Project Background When survivors of domestic violence seek support services in New York City, they are often asked to describe their past trauma multiple times as staff work to understand the case and assess eligibility. While frontline staff and caseworkers treat domestic-violence (DV) cases with care and sensitivity, […]
The Public Prospective Longitudinal Understanding Study of 65+ Adults (PPLUS65)
Project Background Health and aging policies and systems are typically designed from the perspective of people who run systems, rather than those who use them. Even when advocates, policymakers, and providers do seek to learn from older adults, those engagements often have significant limitations: existing datasets and surveys do not adequately focus on priority populations […]
Building a Coalition for Social Justice
