Matthew Fowle

Post-doctoral Fellow
The Housing Initiative at Penn, University of Pennsylvania
Matthew Fowle is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Housing Initiative at Penn at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with a Ph.D. graduate in Public Policy and Management in 2022, with a certificate in Demographic Methods from the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology. His research investigates the role of structural racism in creating housing insecurity among households of color, mortality among people experiencing homelessness, and policies to dismantle generational poverty and homelessness. His dissertation investigated the causes, reproduction, and consequences of racial inequality in homelessness. He brings insights from public health, urban policy, and sociology to his work and conducts mixed methods research using innovative administrative, interview, and survey data.

Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked in philanthropy, local government, and a nonprofit human rights organization. Matt is a co-founder of HomelessDeathsCount.org, a community research project to collect nationwide data on mortality among people experiencing homelessness. He holds degrees in Politics and Law from the University of Chester and Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation from the University of Oxford.

MPA, University of Washington, 2017
M.Sc. in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation, University of Oxford, 2015
B.A. in Politics and Law, University of Chester, 2014
Homelessness and Housing Policy
Poverty and Social Welfare Policy
Race and Social Equity
Program Evaluation Methods

Fowle, M. Z. (2022). Racialized Homelessness: A Review of Historical and Contemporary Causes of Racial Disparities in Homelessness. Housing Policy Debate, 1-28.

Martin, K., and Fowle, M. (2020). “Restitution without restoration? Exploring the gap between the perception and implementation of restitution.” Sociological Perspectives, 63(6), 1015-1037.

Dissertation Title

The Color of Homelessness: The Causes, Reproduction, and Consequences of Racial Inequality in Homelessness

Dissertation Committee Members

Rachel Fyall (Chair)
Scott Allard
Gregg Colburn
Kyle Crowder

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