Street homelessness is ludicrously expensive. The harsh conditions that these people contend with can and often do lead to a host of medical problems that rapidly deteriorate into medical emergencies. The ensuing ambulance trips and emergency treatment combined with the per-person cost of homeless shelters all coalesce into a $20,000 government price tag for every homeless person who lives on the street. It makes absolutely no financial sense to keep homeless people homeless. Thankfully, logic has not fallen on deaf ears — an ever-increasing number of states and municipalities are starting to put housing first.
Utah's Housing First Initiative provides fully furnished apartments with kitchens and bathrooms to each and every homeless person who wants one, with no strings attached. The total price of this initiative, including case management by a social worker: $7,800. If it is 61 percent cheaper to give them permanent homes, that should be all the incentive state and municipal governments need to change how they approach homelessness. Governments struggling with diminishing budgets aren't the only winners when housing comes first.
The current state of homelessness as a construct within our “system” is a paradox. Please try to recall the last time you spent all day travelling through a city on foot in the summer. Remember how sweaty, grimy and tired you felt? Imagine if you had no consistent access to showers and had to do that every day. Even just two days on the streets would personally make me smell terrible and feel even worse. Let’s take this one step further and imagine that you have to carry your entire life with you everywhere you go, because there literally is not a single safe place to leave it for any extended period of time, even in shelters. If you were a business owner, what would you do if a prospective employee came through the door for his or her interview wearing grimy, stinky clothing and holding two overstuffed trash bags filled with everything he or she owns? Even if he or she were the most qualified candidate on earth, you would probably have some reservations about hiring them.
Realistically, it is a fool's errand to apply for a job without having access to a shower and a safe place to leave your things. Street homelessness is a paradox because the only way out of it is to gain a steady source of income, but this simply cannot be done while you're living in those conditions. No wonder these men and women turn to drugs and alcohol. Those who are lucky enough to get a bunk at shelters or halfway houses are kicked out at 5 a.m. sharp and are not allowed to leave anything behind. The situation is a positive feedback loop. In other words, the more time one spends living on the street, the more likely they are to stay there. It is a positively dehumanizing experience — and the hopelessness never stops intensifying.
Those living on the streets also have to contend with a hostile law enforcement system that has effectively made homelessness a crime. I recently went to a seminar at Nolan’s featuring a speaker who once lived on the street. He told us how he acquired a massive criminal record during his time on the streets for doing the most mundane things. Sitting within five feet of any establishment that handles money — jail. Can’t find a business that will let you use the restroom and a policeman catches you peeing in the trees — jail. Can’t pay the fines on your citations — more jail. Can’t pay the $50 fee for going to jail — more jail. As you can plainly see, the situation is patently absurd. If you live on the streets for any significant amount of time, you can be sure that you will go to jail for being homeless, and as you can probably imagine, a large criminal history, even if all of the charges are like the ones mentioned above, makes it even more difficult to find work. The chips are stacked against these people in every possible way.
After sufficient time on the streets, the chronic homeless seem to fully embrace the hopelessness of their situation, and tax payers foot the bill. Angelo Solis, a chronically homeless alcoholic in his late 60s, spent three years racking up almost $1 million in medical charges. Apparently, he would drink as much as he could until he passed out, then the police would find him and call him an ambulance. He would receive full treatment for alcohol poisoning and other chronic health conditions in the emergency room, and leave the Hospital only to get drunk and pass out somewhere else even just hours later. Hospital staff across the country demeaningly calls this ubiquitous type of patient a "frequent flier." Although I do not agree with the label, I understand the sentiment behind it. These chronically homeless people repeatedly require so much time, energy and resources to stabilize when they come into the emergency room. For a single staff to repeatedly have to save someone's life only to see them return hours later and have to save their life again would be exhausting and, given enough time, frustrating.
This is why we need to house the homeless. The streets are a black hole. Once you live on them even for a night, you've crossed the event horizon. The longer you spend on them, the deeper you get and the stronger the pull of gravity that keeps you there. Eventually you get to the point where visible light is completely gone; you've become a “frequent flier.” Housing First Initiatives allow people to break this cycle and actually turn their lives around. I reiterate: If you give someone consistent access to a bathroom and a safe place to leave their things, they will be infinitely better equipped to find employment — and most homeless who accept a free apartment use it exactly for this end. This model benefits taxpayers, municipal and state governments, businesses, hospitals and, especially, the former homeless. Despite this overwhelming positivity, many still criticize these programs.
Those who oppose Housing First believe that it is an unjustified government handout — a view that makes a certain degree of sense when you imagine that a single mother working three jobs might very well already be living in the same building. These critics ask, “Why should someone receive housing for free when other people work themselves to the bone to afford that very same caliber of housing?” All I can really retort is: What is the alternative? Do we continue to treat the symptoms of street homelessness when the cure to the problem is significantly cheaper and leagues easier to implement?
