Utah, Of All Places...

Almost two decades ago, Utah, of all places, set itself the ambitious goal of ending chronic homelessness. That's Utah, the home of Orrin Hatch.

They did this by the most obvious possible expedient -- give them homes. Called Homes First, it reduced the chronic homeless population by 91%.

In fact, giving housing to the homeless is cheaper than keeping them on the streets and dealing with the subsequent problems.

Some early research on this produced truly mind-boggling results like a Central Florida Commission on Homelessness study indicating that the region was spending about triple on policing homeless people’s nonviolent rule-breaking as it would cost to get each homeless person a house and a caseworker. More recent, somewhat more careful studies, were a bit less enthusiastic about the cost-saving potential but still highly positive.

A 2017 RAND Corporation analysis of the Housing for Health program in LA County concluded that the county saved about 20 percent by putting people with complex mental health issues in supportive housing rather than relying on law enforcement and emergency room visits.

A 2015 randomized control trial of a housing-first approach across several Canadian cities saw essentially no change in money spent (Canada’s structurally lower health care costs are likely a factor here) but gains in quality of life and community functioning.

A separate randomized trial study in Toronto found that housing first was effective in combatting alcohol abuse disorders.

Earlier studies from Charlotte and Southeastern Colorado also show large cost savings from focusing on simply housing the homeless.

The general line of thinking behind these programs is one of the happier legacies of the George W. Bush administration. His homelessness czar Philip Mangano was a major proponent of a "housing first" approach to homelessness. And in the early years, it generated significant positive results with the rate of homelessness in America declining 17 percent between 2005 and 2012 despite the poor economic situation.

The more recent uptick in homelessness, however, is a reminder that housing scarcity remains a major problem in America. And yet when it comes to the chronically homeless, you don't need to fix everything to improve their lives. You don't even really need new public money. What you need to do is target those resources at the core of the problem — a lack of housing — and deliver the housing, rather than spending twice as much on sporadic legal and medical interventions.