Studies from across the country found that when we combine
affordable housing with services, people stayed housed, even when they had a
long history of homelessness. Housing First tenants are more likely to
experience decreased symptoms of mental illness, reduce dependence on alcohol
and other drugs, work or go to school, increase their income from work,
permanently leave their abusers, and successfully manage their budgets. This
results in a significant cost savings for communities. A Denver study found
that a Housing First approach saved the community over $30,000 per person.
Other states have shown this model can successfully move
from the theoretical to the tangible. A Colorado study found that the average
homeless person cost the state forty-three thousand dollars a year, while
housing that person would cost just seventeen thousand dollars.
The old model assumed that before you could put people into
permanent homes you had to deal with their underlying issues—get them to stop
drinking, take their medication, and so on. Otherwise, it was thought, they’d
end up back on the streets. But it’s ridiculously hard to get people to make
such changes while they’re living in a shelter or on the street. If you move
people into permanent supportive housing first, and then give them help, it
seems to work better. It’s intuitive, in a way. People do better when they have
stability. Utah’s first pilot program placed seventeen people in homes
scattered around Salt Lake City, and after twenty-two months not one of them
was back on the streets. In the years since, the number of Utah’s chronically
homeless has fallen by seventy-four per cent.
Housing First isn’t just cost-effective. It’s more
effective, period.
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