SAN DIEGO (SEPTEMBER 12, 2023) – Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, today with her colleagues, accepted a strategy to make the County of San Diego’s data portal more accessible; and easier to be understood by the general public. Today’s vote doubles down on the County’s commitment to use data and information to drive results.  

The County’s journey to better use data, research and evaluation to measure the effectiveness of its programs began in 2021 with a proposal by Supervisor Lawson-Remer, and now the County has a strategic plan to equitably measure programs involving homelessness, rental assistance for seniors, a neurodivergent workforce program and immigrant rights legal defense, wage theft and more.

“We are improving the way people can access information from the County by ensuring it is not presented in a manner that makes it only easily understood by only trained data nerds with the action we have taken today,” said Supervisor Lawson-Remer. “Our County is holding itself and its partner accountable using data; it is informing our decision-making on investments.”

There are six research and evaluation projects summarized in County’s first Annual Strategic Research Plan:

1. Evaluation of the Recovery Action Fund for Tomorrow Program

2. Evaluation of the Shallow Rent Subsidy Program for Older Adults

3. Economic Analysis of Increasing the Neurodivergent Workforce in the Public Sector

4. Using Contractual Incentives to Improve Recovery of Wage Theft Judgements

5. Evaluation of the Family Income for Empowerment Program

6. Evaluation of the Immigrant Rights Legal Defense Program

“This is just the beginning of how we will use data to deliver results to our residents,” Supervisor Lawson-Remer continued. “There are at least 33 areas for evaluation in our strategic research plan, including a new policies I will soon introduce regarding homelessness that will be evaluated using information and data.”      

Today’s vote ensuring equitable access to information sharing tools comes from a policy previously introduced by Chairwoman Nora Vargas. To read the entire policy, click here.