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"In 2013 the Utah Housing and Community Development Division reported that the cost of emergency room treatment and jail time averaged over $16,000 per year per

"In 2013 the Utah Housing and Community Development Division reported that the cost of emergency room treatment and jail time averaged over $16,000 per year per homeless person, while the cost of providing a fully subsidized apartment was only $11,000."[0] Obviously, the numbers will change with the area. The cost of an apartment in the Bay Area or LA would be much greater, for example. But the book makes a good case that it'd cost society less overall to just take care of people than to ignore rampant homelessness. I'm inclined to believe it. Related, there's an eye-opening limited series podcast on homelessness called "According to Need" that I found very compelling.[1] The host lives in the Bay Area, so there was a lot focus [t]here. I strongly recommend checking it out to learn just how stacked the system can be against people trying to overcome homelessness. For example, did you crash on someone's couch in the last thirty days? Doesn't matter if you've got nowhere to crash tonight, you don't qualify for a bed. [0] The End of Policing, by Alex S. Vitale first edition pg 97 [1] https://99percentinvisible.org/need/ https://99percentinvisible.org/need/

mod 5y ago
Okay, but giving them housing likely doesn't eliminate the emergency treatment, nor the jail time, in a great many cases. (I would guess a majority, but I have no data to back that. My expectations is that the transient homeless are not getting into trouble for the most part.)
an_opabinia 5y ago
> But the book makes a good case that it'd cost society less overall to just take care of people than to ignore rampant homelessness. It will cost the government less, no question, the analysis is great in this regard. But the reason it doesn't happen is because the analysis is incomplete. My theory is, housing a homeless person decreases the value of the land where they're housed severely and quickly, land that takes relatively an extremely long time to grow in value. That's why what always happens is expensive tents on worthless, unexploitable land (parking lots under highways, sidewalks, city parks). I personally think this is horrible, but I believe it's a better model of what really happens.

mod 5y ago

Okay, but giving them housing likely doesn't eliminate the emergency treatment, nor the jail time, in a great many cases. (I would guess a majority, but I have no data to back that. My expectations is that the transient homeless are not getting into trouble for the most part.)

an_opabinia 5y ago

> But the book makes a good case that it'd cost society less overall to just take care of people than to ignore rampant homelessness. It will cost the government less, no question, the analysis is great in this regard. But the reason it doesn't happen is because the analysis is incomplete. My theory is, housing a homeless person decreases the value of the land where they're housed severely and quickly, land that takes relatively an extremely long time to grow in value. That's why what always happens is expensive tents on worthless, unexploitable land (parking lots under highways, sidewalks, city parks). I personally think this is horrible, but I believe it's a better model of what really happens.