The demand for housing assistance across the United States far exceeds the supply, leaving housing providers the task of prioritizing clients for receipt of this limited resource. To be eligible for federal funding, local homelessness systems are required to implement assessment tools as part of their prioritization processes. The Vulnerability Index Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool (VI-SPDAT) is the most commonly used assessment tool nationwide. Recent studies have criticized the VI-SPDAT as exhibiting racial bias, which may lead to unwarranted racial disparities in housing provision. Such criticisms have led certain jurisdictions to develop alternative tools. Using data from one such prioritization tool, called the Allegheny Housing Assessment (AHA), we use descriptive and quantitative analysis to assess whether the replacement of the VI-SPDAT with the AHA impacts racial disparities in housing allocation. We find that the VI-SPDAT tended to assign higher risk scores to white clients and lower risk scores to Black clients, and that white clients were served at a higher rates pre-AHA deployment. While post-deployment service decisions became better aligned with the AHA score, and the distribution of AHA scores is similar across racial groups, we do not find evidence of a corresponding decrease in disparities in service rates. We attribute the persistent disparity to the use of Alt-AHA, a survey-based tool that is used in cases of low data quality, as well as group differences in eligibility-related factors, such as chronic homelessness and veteran status. We discuss the implications for housing service systems seeking to reduce racial disparities in their service delivery.

翻译：美国各地对住房援助的需求远超供给，这使得住房提供者面临如何优先分配这一有限资源的任务。为获得联邦资金资格，地方无家可归者救助系统被要求在其优先排序流程中实施评估工具。脆弱性指数服务优先决策辅助工具（VI-SPDAT）是全国范围内最常用的评估工具。近期研究批评VI-SPDAT表现出种族偏见，可能导致住房分配中出现不合理的种族差异。此类批评促使部分司法管辖区开发替代工具。利用一种名为阿勒格尼住房评估（AHA）的优先排序工具数据，我们通过描述性和定量分析来评估用AHA替代VI-SPDAT是否影响住房分配中的种族差异。我们发现，VI-SPDAT倾向于给予白人客户更高的风险评分，而给予黑人客户更低的风险评分，且在AHA部署前白人客户获得服务的比例更高。尽管部署后的服务决策与AHA评分更加一致，且AHA评分在不同种族群体间的分布相似，但我们并未发现服务率差异相应减少的证据。我们将这种持续存在的差异归因于Alt-AHA（一种在数据质量较低时使用的基于调查的工具）的使用，以及与资格相关的因素（如长期无家可归状态和退伍军人身份）存在的群体差异。我们讨论了这对寻求减少服务提供中种族差异的住房服务系统的启示。