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Natalie
Matthews, MSW

Principal Associate, Social & Economic Policy

Natalie Matthews has over 15 years of experience in the field of homelessness, with a focus on direct service, system planning, database administration, and technical assistance and implementation (TA). Since joining Abt in 2009, Matthews has served in a variety of roles on its U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Compass TA cooperative agreements. She’s also worked on several locally and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)-funded TA projects, as well as research, monitoring and evaluation projects.  She served as the project director for the VA’s Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) monitoring project, served on the evaluation team for HUD’s first evaluation of rapid re-housing programs for families (2012), and led the evaluation of Hartford Connecticut’s homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing program (2014).

Matthews currently serves as the Project Director for Abt’s HUD-funded portfolio of TA and capacity building efforts related to homelessness, Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS), and youth homelessness.  In this capacity, she leads the Homelessness TA Team’s growth and the development of and continued improvements to the team’s TA approaches. This includes serving as the primary point of contact for HUD on strategy, staffing, project administration, and performance for Abt’s portfolio of approximately $30 million in funding to support homelessness TA initiatives.  Matthews also co-leads the intensive TA for the Minneapolis/Hennepin County community as part of HUD’s Stimulus Response intensive TA effort, where she supports the community in designing, implementing, and evaluating the impact of their permanent housing efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to joining Abt, Natalie worked for the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness (CCEH), where she led the statewide HMIS implementation as well as federal and state advocacy and public policy efforts.

Expertise:

  • Technical Assistance and Capacity Building
  • System Planning
  • Project Management
  • Data-Informed Decision Making
  • Performance Evaluation

Key Projects:

  • Project Director, HUD Community Compass Technical Assistance
  • Coordinator and Site Coach (Minneapolis), HUD Stimulus Response Core Team
  • TA Provider, VA Homeless Program Office Technical Assistance

Publications:

  • Lane, S., McClendon, J. and Matthews, N. (2017), Finding, Serving, and Housing the Homeless: Using Collaborative Research to Prepare Social Work Students for Research and Practice, Journal of Teaching in Social Work, Volume 37 (3), pages 292-306. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08841233.2017.1317689.
  • Burt, M., Wilkins, C., Spellman, B., D’Alanno, T., White, M., Henry, M. and Matthews, N. (2016), Rapid Re-housing for Homeless Families Demonstration Program Evaluation Report Part I: How They Worked- Process Evaluation, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research. Retrieved from https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/RRHD-Report-PartI.html.
  • Finkel, M., Henry, M., Matthews, N. and Spellman, B. (2016), Rapid Re-housing for Homeless Families Demonstration Program Evaluation Report Part II: Demonstration Findings- Outcomes Evaluation, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research. Retrieved from https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/RRHD-Report-PartII.html.
Natalie Matthews