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I have no doubt that this program works, even if the success has been overstated [0]. What we really need to think critically about is how exportable the concep

I have no doubt that this program works, even if the success has been overstated [0]. What we really need to think critically about is how exportable the concept is. And really, it comes down to one singular reason, housing costs[1]. High housing costs like those in most coastal cities contribute to higher inflows into homelessness and lower outflows out of homelessness, which means that higher housing costs increase the total number of homeless people and the duration of homelessness. They also increase the capital and administration costs of administering the program, often by a factor of two or more. So in a city like Seattle or San Francisco, you're going to have drastically more people to house, for drastically longer periods of time, and at higher fixed and variable costs. I have no problem believing that this solution if exported to San Francisco, New York, or Seattle, would cost anywhere between 1-2 orders of magnitude more than SLC as a percentage of total population. IMO, anti-housing-development trends in our most economically important cities truly have become the US' largest source of injustice in the 21st century [2]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/27/utah-homeless-shelters-housing-first https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/27/utah-homeles... [1] https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-salt-lake-city-rent-trends https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-salt-lake-city-re... [2] https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/a-26-year-old-mit-graduate-is-turning-heads-over-his-theory-that-income-inequality-is-actually-2a3b423e0c#.vr3asyt59 https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/a-26-year-old-mit-gra...

tomcam 10y ago
>High housing costs like those in most coastal cities contribute to higher inflows into homelessness and lower outflows out of homelessness Citation needed. Because another reason the homeless migrate to these places is that they spend massive sums on homeless outreach, which draws people in from other areas. I don't know what percentage of homelessness is due to either cause, but I don't see that you do either (not trying to be mean).
- saosebastiao 10y ago
  It was a logically deductive assertion, although I'm sure there are studies out there. Homelessness is defined as not having a home, and all else equal, a relatively higher cost of having a home will result in relatively more people not having a home. The extent that other city-specific factors contribute to the problem may change absolute numbers in either direction, but relative homelessness should always be higher given higher housing costs.
  - tomcam 10y ago
    In absolute terms one would have to agree with your logic. But from what I understand the vast majority of homeless are drug addicts and/or mentally ill. I think (no data to back me up at the moment) that this dwarfs the number of people who become homeless literally because they are priced out of the market.

tomcam 10y ago

>High housing costs like those in most coastal cities contribute to higher inflows into homelessness and lower outflows out of homelessness Citation needed. Because another reason the homeless migrate to these places is that they spend massive sums on homeless outreach, which draws people in from other areas. I don't know what percentage of homelessness is due to either cause, but I don't see that you do either (not trying to be mean).

saosebastiao 10y ago
It was a logically deductive assertion, although I'm sure there are studies out there. Homelessness is defined as not having a home, and all else equal, a relatively higher cost of having a home will result in relatively more people not having a home. The extent that other city-specific factors contribute to the problem may change absolute numbers in either direction, but relative homelessness should always be higher given higher housing costs.
- tomcam 10y ago
  In absolute terms one would have to agree with your logic. But from what I understand the vast majority of homeless are drug addicts and/or mentally ill. I think (no data to back me up at the moment) that this dwarfs the number of people who become homeless literally because they are priced out of the market.