Revised survey script

Revised Survey Script

Script for Baseline Survey

Hi, my name is ______________. I am calling from Silber & Associates, a research firm based in Baltimore. I am calling to ask you some questions about your situation now that you have begun to participate in the Veterans Homelessness Prevention Demonstration (VHPD). Thank you for allowing your local VHPD program to send us your name and contact information, and for taking the time to speak with me today. We will be talking for about 25-30 minutes. As you may remember, your VHPD program told you that someone would be contacting you shortly to hear about how things have been going for you and what brought you to the program.

HUD, the VA, and the Department of Labor, the federal partners sponsoring VHPD, are very interested in helping veterans avoid homelessness. They hope to learn from your experiences with the Veterans Homelessness Prevention Program about the ways the program might be able to help you deal with the situation you are in. I’ll ask you a series of questions about your living situation (housing, who lives with you), income and employment, housing cost, health and well-being, and ways you think your military experiences may be affecting your living situation. You will probably have answered many of the same questions for your VHPD program and the local VA Medical Center, but please bear with us as the information you give us will be used to understand in greater depth the situation that some veterans may find themselves in, where they are in danger of losing their housing or may already have lost it.

Your participation in this study will help the federal partners to improve programs for veterans like you across the country. Your participation is voluntary; you may stop the interview at any time. If any question makes you feel uncomfortable, you can refuse to answer that question. The information you provide will be kept confidential and only used for this study to the extent allowed by the Privacy Act of 1974. The collection of this information has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget. Right now, let me verify a few things:

Script for Follow-Up Survey

[READ ALOUD] Hi, my name is ______________. I’m calling from Silber & Associates, a research firm based in Baltimore. As you’ll recall, we talked on [INSERT DATE of baseline interview], just as you were enrolling in the Veterans Homelessness Prevention Demonstration (VHPD), about your situation and your housing needs. I’m talking to people such as yourself who have participated in a program to help veterans keep their housing, or get back into housing if they have lost it. We are interested in learning about how things are for you now, and how VHPD may have helped, or may still be helping, you and your family.

As before, I’ll be asking you a series of questions about your living situation (housing, who lives with you), income and employment, housing cost, health and well-being, and anything that may be making it hard at present for you to stay stably housed. I’ll also be asking you about the VHPD program you participated in, and the ways you think the program has affected your current situation.

HUD, the VA, and the Department of Labor, the federal partners sponsoring VHPD, are very interested in helping veterans avoid homelessness. They hope to learn from your experiences with the VHPD program about the ways they might be able to help veterans who find themselves in need of help keep their housing. Your participation in this study will help the VA and HUD to improve programs for veterans like you across the country. Your participation is voluntary; you may stop the interview at any time. If any question makes you feel uncomfortable, you can refuse to answer that question. The information you provide will be kept confidential and only used for this study to the extent allowed by the Privacy Act of 1974.. The collection of this information has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget.