The Center for Human Services Research was awarded a contract by the Division of Housing and Community Renewal to conduct a qualitative study on housing in relation to grandparent and elderly relative caregivers of children.

This qualitative project endeavored to give substance to NYS data on grandfamilies and housing cost, and to make connections between identified needs in grandfamily housing and existing infrastructures for affordable low-and moderate-income housing in New York State. In order to answer key questions about the needs and desires of individuals living in grandfamily housing the following five tasks were conducted:

1. Reviewed relevant applied research and scholarly literature on grandparents and grandfamily housing.
2. Conducted interviews with experienced program professionals at statewide, regional and/or local levels of NYS Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS), Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), and the State Office for the Aging (SOFA).
3. Conducted interviews with directors of local kinship care programs and coalitions across the state.
4. Administer six focus groups with children and grandparents and elderly relatives caregivers reflecting diverse distribution of grandfamilies around the state.
5. Generated a narrative report summarizing the findings and making recommendations derived from these findings.

Senior Research Scientist Lauren Polvere, Ph.D was the Principal Investigator. Other members of the team included Rose Greene, Eunju Lee, Sarah Rain, Camille Barnes, Meera Bhat and Cori Robohn

For more information, contact Rose Greene