A chronically homeless person costs the tax payer an average of $35,578 per year. Costs on average are reduced by 49.5% when they are placed in supportive housing. Supportive housing costs on average $12,800, making the net savings roughly $4,800 per year.
Studies have shown that – in practice, and not just in theory – providing people experiencing chronic homelessness with permanent supportive housing saves taxpayers money.
Without connections to the right types of care, they cycle in and out of hospital emergency departments and inpatient beds, detox programs, jails, prisons, and psychiatric institutions—all at high public expense. Some studies have found that leaving a person to remain chronically homeless costs taxpayers as much as $30,000 to $50,000 per year.
This obviously varies from state to state. But generally it is cheaper to fix the root of a problem (housing) than a symptom (emergency services), and that applies to homelessness.
But even if it wasn’t a better option from a purely cost/benefit analysis, the moral thing to do is to house the homeless. So no matter what, it is something we should be doing.
They passed a “camping ban” targeting the homeless. It passed the city council a month or two ago. I attended a bunch of protests, but couldn’t really do anything about it since I live in IB
Honestly not surprised. Back when I worked for the city the director of parks and rec would go on and on about “combating” homlessnes. No one seemed interested in prevention or help (this was up in north county tho) and if you asked they’d look at you like you were crazy
It’s not surprising, but it is disappointing. Mayor Gloria ran on a platform that specifically called out Faulkner for his unconstitutional attempts to ban homelessness, and he turns around and does this.
Here in California we’re saving the most money, by not jailing the homeless AND not housing the homeless.
Leaving them on the streets is also more expensive than housing them.
When they’re on the streets, it means the government must pay for emergency services, extra sanitation work, police are called more frequently, etc.
True. I should have said “saving money”.
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http://endhomelessness.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Cost-Savings-from-PSH.pdf
https://www.npscoalition.org/post/fact-sheet-cost-of-homelessness
https://www.usich.gov/resources/uploads/asset_library/Ending_Chronic_Homelessness_in_2017.pdf
This obviously varies from state to state. But generally it is cheaper to fix the root of a problem (housing) than a symptom (emergency services), and that applies to homelessness.
But even if it wasn’t a better option from a purely cost/benefit analysis, the moral thing to do is to house the homeless. So no matter what, it is something we should be doing.
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San Diego has entered the chat. I’m still fuming over that ban.
Oh fuck what happened in SD?
They passed a “camping ban” targeting the homeless. It passed the city council a month or two ago. I attended a bunch of protests, but couldn’t really do anything about it since I live in IB
Honestly not surprised. Back when I worked for the city the director of parks and rec would go on and on about “combating” homlessnes. No one seemed interested in prevention or help (this was up in north county tho) and if you asked they’d look at you like you were crazy
It’s not surprising, but it is disappointing. Mayor Gloria ran on a platform that specifically called out Faulkner for his unconstitutional attempts to ban homelessness, and he turns around and does this.