The Thurman Lab at The University of Texas at Austin focuses on supporting community-led and community-based solutions that improve health and housing outcomes among adults with disabling health conditions and lived experience of homelessness.

People with disabilities are at high-risk for poor health and social outcomes due to inaccessible healthcare, housing, and educational systems and are disproportionately over represented among homeless populations. The lab aims to solve the need for community-based long-term services and supports for disabled adults with lived experience of homelessness. This is a critically important area given that older adults are the fastest growing sub-population of people experiencing homelessness, and current systems of care and healthcare policy were not designed to meet the needs of this structurally vulnerable population. The lab uses community-engaged and community-based participatory research methods to advance knowledge and develop practice and policy solutions to overcome barriers to person-centered, community-based health services for this population.