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Is is cheaper for the taxpayer to provide apartments for the homeless?

Is is cheaper for the taxpayer to provide apartments for the homeless?


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We've tried your idea. Have you ever seen a housing project?

Darling, for a part of my youth I grew up in a decent one. I grew up in the UK where they're called council estates. Some of them are scummy and some of them very decent places to live. If the governing local authority invests enough in them, and they're houses/apartments of a decent standard with green spaces, play areas, commerces, facilities, youth clubs etc. where people can live their lives with dignity, then guess what? People respect their environment as much as any owner-occupiers. I had a decent life in that public housing complex.

I now live in France - some local authorities don't invest in their public housing estates and they're $hit places to live - like the places where riots broke out a few years back. Others do invest - and those estates stayed riot free. It was essentially about poverty, not race or Islam as Fox News tried to portray. I live in a very progressive Parisian suburb where there is much decent public housing. The whole town has areas that are mixed public/private housing and quite frankly, it can be hard to tell which apartment complexes are public housing and which aren't. Low income families have decent apartments - what's so awful about that?

Of course, if you stick people in US style ghettos and limit their life chances, they're not going to be nice places to live.
 
Don't know if it would be cheaper, but it would be much more humane, than letting them be on the street.
 
Darling, for a part of my youth I grew up in a decent one. I grew up in the UK where they're called council estates. Some of them are scummy and some of them very decent places to live. If the governing local authority invests enough in them, and they're houses/apartments of a decent standard with green spaces, play areas, commerces, facilities, youth clubs etc. where people can live their lives with dignity, then guess what? People respect their environment as much as any owner-occupiers. I had a decent life in that public housing complex.

I now live in France - some local authorities don't invest in their public housing estates and they're $hit places to live - like the places where riots broke out a few years back. Others do invest - and those estates stayed riot free. It was essentially about poverty, not race or Islam as Fox News tried to portray. I live in a very progressive Parisian suburb where there is much decent public housing. The whole town has areas that are mixed public/private housing and quite frankly, it can be hard to tell which apartment complexes are public housing and which aren't. Low income families have decent apartments - what's so awful about that?

Of course, if you stick people in US style ghettos and limit their life chances, they're not going to be nice places to live.
Spend enough money? We have been throwing scads of money at this problem for many decades, nothing changes. Most government housing projects start out nice, but they don't stay that way. At least the ones I've seen.

But I'm glad your experience was a good one. :)
 
Spend enough money? We have been throwing scads of money at this problem for many decades, nothing changes. Most government housing projects start out nice, but they don't stay that way. At least the ones I've seen.

Then there is an inherent problem in the planning and management. Create vast ghettos where you stick your undesirables out of the way - of course it will fail. Build public housing in areas where people share the same good facilities as their owner-occupier neighbours, where they don't have to be ashamed to say, "I live in X-ville" and you get different outcomes.

But I'm glad your experience was a good one. :)

Thank you, it was. And believe me, I'm not alone.
 
As a liberal, I don't support this in anyway. It would be an excelant way of trashing apartment complexes.The homeless need to have shelter, but giving them an apartment is not the way to do it. I believe this has been tried before without any success.
On this one, Pete, I agree with you.

As they are homeless, what grounds are there that they'd value and / or have the ability to take care of an apartment. Wouldn't it be likely that the apartment in question would soon look like and smell like the streets theyvcame from? No, I think greater supervision is required.
 
Salt Lake City built apartment buildings for the chronic homeless and the program seems to working for cutting costs and getting them the help they need....


"...with the traditional approach, the average chronically homeless person used to cost Salt Lake City more than twenty thousand dollars a year. Putting someone into permanent housing costs the state just eight thousand dollars, and that’s after you include the cost of the case managers who work with the formerly homeless to help them adjust. The same is true elsewhere. 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...."​

Give the Homeless Homes - The New Yorker
 
Google and read the studies - they found that providing apartments for the homeless is actually cheaper than it is to pay for the increased police presence, the use of the court system, and the extra prison capacity that comes with having those people on the streets.

Yes, that's counterintuitive...but one is cheaper than the other. And there's the rub - you do pay. One way or another, you pay anyway. You can pay more for cops and courts and prisons...or you can pay somewhat less for apartments to give them a place where they can take a shower, wash and iron their clothes, and get a job.

But you pay anyway. Do you want to pay more for the stick...or less for the carrot?

Not jailing people is always cheaper. Police shooting sed offenders instead of arresting them is cheaper, should we do that too?

Principle sometimes costs money.

I'm willing to give homeless people housing but it won't be free, it will be a structured existence like military recruit training and doing hard physical labor like pulling scotch broom from clearcuts in the national forest.

Ill gladly pay taxes to make them better themselves, I will even support feeding them steak, they'll need to protein for the work I have in mind, but I will not pay another nickel so they can sit in a pad and smoke pot. Seriously I work in seattle and would love to live closer to work, I make over twice the minimum wage and I can't afford to live in the city, where's my free pad? I actually contribute to society
 
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Salt Lake City built apartment buildings for the chronic homeless and the program seems to working for cutting costs and getting them the help they need....


"...with the traditional approach, the average chronically homeless person used to cost Salt Lake City more than twenty thousand dollars a year. Putting someone into permanent housing costs the state just eight thousand dollars, and that’s after you include the cost of the case managers who work with the formerly homeless to help them adjust. The same is true elsewhere. 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...."​

Give the Homeless Homes - The New Yorker

Ok can you link the budget numbers that say SLC and Colorado cut social services or law enforcement budgets after this program was started?
 
why do you HAVE a kid before you've got at LEAST 1/4 million $ safely invested, hmm? Cause you're STUPID, arrogant, selfish, hypocritical and just generally a sorry sack of it who has no problem pointing govt guns at other people, to pay for the raising of kids that you had no biz having.
 
why do you HAVE a kid before you've got at LEAST 1/4 million $ safely invested, hmm? Cause you're STUPID, arrogant, selfish, hypocritical and just generally a sorry sack of it who has no problem pointing govt guns at other people, to pay for the raising of kids that you had no biz having.

Harsh. :shock:

If everyone in this country waited until they had a quarter of a mil invested, the population would die out pretty quickly. That's a lot of money for people just starting out, and that's when most of the women are having children.
 
Ok can you link the budget numbers that say SLC and Colorado cut social services or law enforcement budgets after this program was started?

If the state is spending less on the homeless than they were prior to the program then why would it need to cut other social services or law enforcement to fund it?
 
Actually from a cost-saving perspective I've no doubt it is cheaper to give homeless their own houses or apts.
 
If the state is spending less on the homeless than they were prior to the program then why would it need to cut other social services or law enforcement to fund it?

If they're spending less money then social services should have a smaller budget.

If goes down to 1 buck a gallon from three, you should be spending 66% less on fuel

Same principal, if not as many homeless people are being dealt with by law enforcement we need fewer corrections officers and jail expenses like food or the such.

The reality is it doesn't save us money otherwise, like years ago when the state of Washington claimed mandatory helmets for motorcycles would cut Medicaid costs and the indoor smoking ban would cut Medicaid costs, but Medicaid expenditures continue to rise
 
Actually from a cost-saving perspective I've no doubt it is cheaper to give homeless their own houses or apts.

It may well be for the people who apply.

But people tout salt lake city's program, but I've been to SLC several times in the last few months there is still homeless people on the streets, I think the people who actually seek the apartment are probably the best 10% of the homeless
 
Why is everything in america deduced to a strict monetary equation, rather than at least put up a semblance of humanitarian/moral duty? To think that 3/4 of the country identifies as christian and doesn't even support shelter for the homeless. How do i know they don't support it? The dwindling number of even ghetto shelters that are available
 
If they're spending less money then social services should have a smaller budget.
If goes down to 1 buck a gallon from three, you should be spending 66% less on fuel.
Just because you're spending less on fuel doesn't mean you won't still have rising costs in buying a car, car insurance, registration and car maintenance/repair bills. There's more to the homeless problem than just finding housing because a lot of them are mentally ill or drug abusers and require a lot of medical care. Getting people off the street helps keep them safer and healthier which means less medical costs.

Same principal, if not as many homeless people are being dealt with by law enforcement we need fewer corrections officers and jail expenses like food or the such.

The reality is it doesn't save us money otherwise, like years ago when the state of Washington claimed mandatory helmets for motorcycles would cut Medicaid costs and the indoor smoking ban would cut Medicaid costs, but Medicaid expenditures continue to rise
Well, if Medicaid costs are going up it's probably because doctors are using more technology and expensive drugs to treat patients and because there are more people than there were 20 or so years ago and because there's more Medicaid fraud. But just reducing fraud would go a long way to lowering costs by a few billion.
 
If they're spending less money then social services should have a smaller budget.

If goes down to 1 buck a gallon from three, you should be spending 66% less on fuel

Same principal, if not as many homeless people are being dealt with by law enforcement we need fewer corrections officers and jail expenses like food or the such.

The reality is it doesn't save us money otherwise, like years ago when the state of Washington claimed mandatory helmets for motorcycles would cut Medicaid costs and the indoor smoking ban would cut Medicaid costs, but Medicaid expenditures continue to rise

Policies like mandatory seat belts are purely intended as a gift for the insurance lobby and costs on treatment going down doesn't mean some exec isn't pocketing the difference. Medicaid in my state at least is still run by for profit companies

Likewise, fewer homeless *should* translate to less prison costs, but also conceivably higher social service costs (new food stamps or whatever). Then again, many prisons are for profit so expect them to just raise the rates per inmate. Even less time spent by cops dealing with homeless -> lower police budget -> they make up the diff thru higher traffic tickets, preferably black drivers if it's ferguson

Corruption is just human nature i'm afraid. The question is does our system make it easier to get away with
 
That's part of why I vote Democratic. :)
And part of why I don't. If you believe in something, fund it with your own money. Don't vote into power politicians who will steal from others to implement policies you like.
 
Why is everything in america deduced to a strict monetary equation, rather than at least put up a semblance of humanitarian/moral duty?
Because we are a nation of free individuals. If you prefer a nation where the citizens are devoid of rights of their own and must bow to the needs of the Motherland or the Fatherland, I am sure there are places out there that can accommodate you.
To think that 3/4 of the country identifies as christian and doesn't even support shelter for the homeless. How do i know they don't support it? The dwindling number of even ghetto shelters that are available
Christianity is based upon charity and voluntary giving. What you advocate is state imposed humanitarian/moral duty. Any Christian who supports that, doesn't understand their own religion.
 
It seems like a decent deal, as long as the accommodations are made so basic that people aren't deciding "screw paying rent, I'll just get kicked out, be homeless, and get a free apartment".
 
If they're spending less money then social services should have a smaller budget.

If goes down to 1 buck a gallon from three, you should be spending 66% less on fuel

Same principal, if not as many homeless people are being dealt with by law enforcement we need fewer corrections officers and jail expenses like food or the such.

The reality is it doesn't save us money otherwise, like years ago when the state of Washington claimed mandatory helmets for motorcycles would cut Medicaid costs and the indoor smoking ban would cut Medicaid costs, but Medicaid expenditures continue to rise

I understand your point, but the fact that prison expenses didn't go down after a relative handful of homeless were provided housing doesn't tell us a thing unless we know all the other factors that affect the prison population and how they've changed. What could be a success is, for example, a rate of growth of 6% versus 7% or whatever. Or it might be a new prison isn't needed. And if 100 kids didn't spend a week in the hospital after severe head injuries, but Seattle added 10,000 diabetics to the rolls, that Medicaid costs still went up shouldn't be a surprise and that total costs increased doesn't show that the 100 fewer weeks in ICU from motorcycle accidents didn't save any money.
 
It would be far cheaper, and better for the economy overall, for the homeless that were able bodied and mentally healthy to clean themselves up and use whatever opportunities are available to not be homeless anymore.

I've been involved for years with a charity that takes on the homeless, about half of them veterans. In our experience, almost all of the long term homeless have mental or physical issues, from PTSD to schizophrenia and several other diagnosable mental health issues that require medication to control. Those that aren't mentally ill are almost all addicted to drugs or alcohol or both. Dual diagnoses are the norm - percentages vary but clearly the majority are both mentally ill and addicted, with drugs and alcohol how the homeless "treat" their mental illness. And living on the streets means that when they come in most of them have lousy health.

So the "mentally healthy" share of the long term homeless is very, very small. Lots of them can become healthy, but it takes a lot of time, and getting them off the street is the first necessary step. When they come in our doors we expect them to remain for a minimum of six months - that's what is required to have any chance of long term success in the 'real world.' They have to pay 'rent' which they do by working or with disability, VA payments or some other source of money. If they can't work a job, they're required to do work at the charity - maintenance and so on. We give them clothes, teach them to interview, fill out job applications, cook a meal. It's a process and expecting them to just pull themselves up by their bootstraps sounds nice, but is doomed to fail.

Our charity doesn't take the "housing first" approach (they have to remain sober), but I'm all for it if it works. We're a pretty conservative place, but the city did a long term study, in concert with a lot of orgs that deal with the homeless and one part of the recommendations was long term housing. It's been stalled mainly because the city can't find locations to put them - they identified a bunch of old apartment complexes, but the locals (understandably really) don't want them housed in THEIR back yard....

The bottom line is dealing with these people will take a lot of manpower and money. The traditional approach is to let the cops deal with them and provide them "free housing" and food and healthcare in prison which is a very expensive way to provide those services. Akin to providing routine medical care at the ER because the patient can't afford an actual doctor. As a general principle, I'd rather replace cops and jails with social workers and mental health professionals and house them in apartments. The latter approach has a chance at actually working to get some of these folks back on their feet.
 
Because we are a nation of free individuals. If you prefer a nation where the citizens are devoid of rights of their own and must bow to the needs of the Motherland or the Fatherland, I am sure there are places out there that can accommodate you.

Christianity is based upon charity and voluntary giving. What you advocate is state imposed humanitarian/moral duty. Any Christian who supports that, doesn't understand their own religion.

Give me a break. That's only your opinion.

If we're going to play this game, though, how about Christian charities rise up and house all these homeless and then the "State" wouldn't have anyone else to deal with, they'd all have housing provided by Christian charities. I work with one of them, and we can house 150 people at any one time, and we always have a waiting list of several hundred - could be 1,000 easy enough but no point keeping a list that long. And we get homeless throughout the region, because most regions have ZERO facilities to deal with the chronic homeless and addicted who can't afford a $12,000/month treatment facility. The fact is there aren't enough faith based orgs to even begin to deal with all the homeless in our expanded area.

So if you're telling me the moral thing to do in this situation is to say screw the homeless, let them rot on the streets, until the faith based voluntary!!! charities emerge, I'd say it's you who doesn't understand their religion, which is also MY opinion.
 
Give me a break. That's only your opinion.

If we're going to play this game, though, how about Christian charities rise up and house all these homeless and then the "State" wouldn't have anyone else to deal with, they'd all have housing provided by Christian charities. I work with one of them, and we can house 150 people at any one time, and we always have a waiting list of several hundred - could be 1,000 easy enough but no point keeping a list that long. And we get homeless throughout the region, because most regions have ZERO facilities to deal with the chronic homeless and addicted who can't afford a $12,000/month treatment facility. The fact is there aren't enough faith based orgs to even begin to deal with all the homeless in our expanded area.

So if you're telling me the moral thing to do in this situation is to say screw the homeless, let them rot on the streets, until the faith based voluntary!!! charities emerge, I'd say it's you who doesn't understand their religion, which is also MY opinion.
I am not obligated to help these people and neither are you. You are free to do so and so am I. Except that isn't good enough for liberals. They want to help these people but not with their own money. They want to take it from others. And look at the results. The left has gotten its theft schemes enacted and there are still more homeless than you can count. Just as much poverty as ever. And $18,000,000,000,000 worth of debt. So what do you want? More of the same. No thanks.
 
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