Okay, fair enough. I don't agree with you but at least you are being fair about it.
BTW, I am not necessarily against providing shelter for the homeless, just not full blown apartments. I thought the shipping container shelters someone posted earlier looked like a viable alternative. Heck, some people who aren't homeless are living in those things and other small domiciles to minimize living expenses. I believe there's a whole "micro-shelter" or some such movement. It's not a bad idea if you don't require a lot of space.
FWIW, I went to the study, and they were provided one bedroom "efficiency" apartment, which I understand has a separate bathroom. Each person has his own apartment. One online site said an "efficiency" is less than 350sq ft, but I didn't see that in the study itself. Based on some comments, they get a small frig, and maybe a microwave, but there is no kitchen. Looks like another charity fed them for the most part.
Other observations - 88% homeless 3+ years and about 40% 6+ years.
They defined 5 disabling conditions - physical disability, HIV, other chronic illness, substance abuse, mental illness. About 2/3 were chronically ill, 2/3 substance abuse, 2/3 mental illness. 1/3 had a physical disability. 100% had at least one condition, 75% had two of those 5 conditions and 40% had 3 of those.
Substance use was a less than I expected. Just a few days per month on average (mean) for drugs (about 4 days/mo, SD
16 which is high). So many used not at all it looks like, and some probably used drugs every day. Alcohol use to "intoxication" was mean 4 days/mo, SD 8, so less than drugs.
Only surprise is this place is intended to be indefinite. If a tenant stayed at the place for the 3 years of the study, that was a success. I'd have thought the goal was to get them into self supported living, but apparently for these folks that wasn't seen as a reasonable goal.
One part of the cost savings is a bit fishy - they used hospital billing, before and after, and that's an inflated number as they point out in the study. No insurer, anyway, pays the sticker. But the number of days hospitalized, billing, 911 calls, ER visits, etc were all WAY down. So the medical savings are real, just not as big as the study reports.
Anyway, link here:
Housing for Homeless in Charlotte, NC | Volunteer Opportunities
The link to pdf is on that page. Pretty interesting although I just skimmed it.