A program developed by Dr. Stephanie Moulton, assistant professor at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs, and the Ohio Housing Finance Agency has won a 2010 Engagement Impact Grant from Ohio State’s Office of Outreach and Engagement.
The $50,000 grant will help the program build on the Ohio Housing Finance Agency’s successful affordable mortgage program and educational services for home buyers by developing and adding an interactive online financial planning module and providing phone-based financial counseling services for homeowners during the first year after their home purchases.
The project will also include an innovative random-assignment research design that will allow for the identification of the relative effectiveness of online and telephone financial counseling interventions. According to Moulton, “This type of evaluation is one of a kind. Previous evaluations of this kind are not based on random-assignment to different types of counseling interventions, so it is difficult to tell if the observed effects are due to selection —individuals who choose to go to one type of counseling are also more motivated to make timely mortgage payments — or if the effects are truly a result of the intervention. By employing random assignment, we will be able to identify the relative effectiveness of the various interventions.” The grant money will also help provide additional resources towards the development and evaluation of financial literacy interventions.
Caziliia Loibl, assistant professor in the School of Human Ecology and Ohio State Extension Specialist, and Michael Collins, faculty director for the Center for Financial Security and assistant professor in the School of Human Ecology, UW Madison, will partner with Dr. Moulton and the Ohio Housing Finance Agency and its Office of Affordable Housing Research on the project.
The competitive Engagement Impact grant provides funding from The Ohio State University Office of University Outreach and Engagement and supports innovative, creative and scholarly outreach and engagement initiatives that partner the academic/research excellence of Ohio State University with communities.
