Pelle Tracey is passionate about housing justice. “Housing is where the personal and political meet in an intimate way,” says the new Information School assistant professor, whose research examines how data-driven record-keeping tools used to allocate rare housing resources often miss the messy realities of homelessness.

The tools’ algorithmic prioritization processes quantify each unhoused individual’s level of vulnerability. Scores can determine who gets shelter and who gets left out in the cold. “These tools struggle to capture the nuances of homelessness, leaving highly vulnerable people without assistance,” says Tracey.

The tools, key to America’s allocation system for homeless services, aim to improve efficiency but are not particularly effective or evidence-based, says the researcher. “Yet they have a huge impact on people’s life chances.”

Tracey’s research comes at a critical time, when demand for homelessness aid far outstrips supply. Surveys show unhoused populations increased a record 18 percent in 2024, with many people experiencing homelessness for the first time. More and more are over the age of 55 and many are children; a government point-in-time survey reported an almost 33 percent increase in homelessness among children from 2023 to 2024.

The homeless services system is an “infrastructure of last resort” for these individuals, the researcher says. “You have nowhere else to turn and you need a bed to sleep in.”

Tracey knows the realities of homelessness first-hand. After undergraduate studies at Earlham College in Indiana, he switched gears and became a social services worker, doing everything from case management to housing services administration. “I was keen to try and have a more material impact in this world after spending four years in undergraduate school reading about it.” 

He spent several years on the front lines before returning to academic life as a graduate student at the University of Michigan’s School of Information, where he earned his Ph.D. in May. As part of his dissertation, he volunteered at an outreach center, asking questions of workers and homeless clients while also preparing meals. 

His grounded knowledge deeply informs his research, say colleagues. “Pelle is the rare type of scholar who can combine empirical rigor, theoretical depth and socially impactful work,” says Patricia Garcia, his University of Michigan Ph.D. adviser, co-author of multiple publications with Tracey.

One of Tracey’s eye-opening studies focused on 15 social workers, many concerned that datafication was eroding the ethos of care at the heart of their work. They often found fault in the commonly used vulnerability-assessment tool, the VI-SPDAT (Vulnerability Index – Service Prioritization Decision Assistant Tool), a five-page questionnaire with yes, no, and “how many times” questions. Those questions are sometimes confusing or off-the-mark for clients, social workers reported.

Despite potential sanctions for doing so, these overtaxed and typically underpaid workers often went off-script and found “workarounds,” rephrasing questions or asking prompting follow-up questions that might raise scores and give their client a better shot at finding housing. If clients scored low, the social workers might appeal a score as inaccurate.

Tracey calls these workarounds “intermediation.” “It is a way to inject their expertise and creativity into the process of mediating the complex lives of their clients and the rigid record-keeping of the system. It is a form of care. They’re fighting for their clients’ humanity in a dehumanizing bureaucracy.”

This intermediation provides insights into ways to build automated systems that are more just, effective and person-centered, beyond the VI-SPDAT, says the multi-method researcher. “We have a real opportunity to look at the bigger picture and ask what are our values, and to be driven by that rather than a narrow, ‘How can we quantify vulnerability more effectively?’”

Tracey plans to continue this research at the iSchool, where he’s excited to be working with long-admired colleagues. “I was over the moon to get a job here,” he says. 

iSchool faculty welcome his hands-on expertise. “We value research that has real-world impact, and Pelle’s research is a perfect example of that,” says Assistant Professor Melanie Walsh. 

At the iSchool, Tracey will also turn a research lens on the rental housing crisis that is putting many out on the street. In the last five years, skyrocketing rents have grown faster than wages, with many Americans paying more than half their income on rent. “As these housing cost burdens rise, more people become precariously housed. They may be one week of bad luck from moving onto a relative’s couch or moving in with friends. The more people in that situation, the more who fall through the cracks, with enormous consequences.”

From his years studying homelessness, on the ground, at the desk, Tracey can attest: “It can happen to anyone.”