Sorry, finally got around to reading your links. I can’t find the LA study, but the Portland comparison is a bit of an outlier compared to the homeless problem in most cities. The cost of acquiring housing in large cities is much larger.
Most of the studies seem to compare the cost before and after placing people in permanent housing, but not factoring in the cost of the housing itself. And they speak about the benefits to individuals placed in housing, not the society wide impacts. If we could vastly improve the life of one person a year at the expense of all other homeless people, that’s a terrible bargain.
Shelters are not a cure-all, they’re harm reduction. And I still suspect they’re massively cheaper (in cost per number of people helped) than procuring housing for everyone.
Sorry, finally got around to reading your links. I can’t find the LA study, but the Portland comparison is a bit of an outlier compared to the homeless problem in most cities. The cost of acquiring housing in large cities is much larger.
Most of the studies seem to compare the cost before and after placing people in permanent housing, but not factoring in the cost of the housing itself. And they speak about the benefits to individuals placed in housing, not the society wide impacts. If we could vastly improve the life of one person a year at the expense of all other homeless people, that’s a terrible bargain.
Shelters are not a cure-all, they’re harm reduction. And I still suspect they’re massively cheaper (in cost per number of people helped) than procuring housing for everyone.