In the past nine years, Utah has decreased the number of homeless by 72 percent — mainly by finding and building apartments where they can live, permanently, with no strings attached. It's a program, or more accurately a philosophy, called Housing First. Utah found that giving people supportive housing cost the system about half as much as leaving the homeless to live on the street.
A group called Pathways to Housing ran a significant test in which they provided apartments to 242 chronically homeless individuals, no questions asked. In their apartments, they could drink, take drugs and suffer mental breakdowns, as long as they didn't hurt anyone or bother their neighbors. If they needed and wanted to go to rehab or detox, these services were provided. If they needed and wanted medical care, it was also offered. But it was up to the client to decide what services and responsibility to participate in. After five years, 88 percent of the clients were still in their apartments and the cost of caring for them in their own homes was a little less than what it would have cost to take care of them on the street.
A subsequent study of 4,679 New York City homeless with severe mental illness found that each cost an average of $40,449 a year in emergency room, shelter, and other expenses to the system, and that getting those individuals in supportive housing saved an average of $16,282. Soon, other cities such as Seattle and Portland, Maine, as well as states, such as Rhode Island and Illinois, ran tests with similar results. Denver found emergency-service costs alone went down 73 percent for people put in Housing First, for a savings of $31,545 per person; detox visits went down 82 percent, for an additional savings of $8,732. By 2003. Why could we not arrive at an expanded Housing First program here in Anchorage funded with a bond issue?
— Karl Schroeder
Anchorage
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