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Wyoming is nearly a decade behind its neighbor Utah in doing something to end its chronic homelessness problem, but it’s never too late to start. There are many people to help and a lot of public money to be saved, in a humanitarian way.
In 2005, Utah set out to do something very different than the typical strategy of getting the hard-core homeless off drugs and alcohol, and making them jump through enough bureaucratic hoops to obtain some state assistance and finally get what they need most: permanent housing.
Utah started a pilot program that took 17 people in Salt Lake City who had spent an average of 25 years on the street and put them in apartments. Caseworkers were assigned to help them become self-sufficient, but there were no strings attached – if they failed, the participants still had a place to live.
The “Housing First” program’s goal was to end chronic homelessness in Utah within 10 years. Through 2012, it had helped reduce the 2,000 people in that category when it began by 74 percent. Lloyd Pendleton, director of Utah’s Homeless Task Force, said the state is on track to meet its goal by 2015, and become the first state in the nation to do so.
Pendleton, who previously worked for Ford Motors and the Mormon Church, is trying to help Wyoming start its own Housing First program. He recently made his fifth visit to Casper, where he addressed the Mayor’s Prayer Luncheon, which focused on the city’s homeless problem.
Wyoming has been going the opposite direction than Utah has: its homeless population has increased by 213 percent in the past three years. In 2012, the state managed to provide shelter for only 26 percent of the homeless, which was the lowest rate in the country. The next state on the list, at 35 percent, was California, where the climate is obviously much more conducive to sleeping outside than ours.
Utah’s model has been duplicated in other states and communities throughout the country, with excellent results. It has the support of several city officials in Casper, including City Manager John Patterson, who held the same position in Ogden and worked closely with Pendleton to begin a Housing First program there.
Casper plans to use 10-14 units in the recently acquired 50-unit Star Apartments downtown as its pilot project. It won’t begin anytime soon, because asbestos still needs to be removed from the building, but once the complex is remodeled, applicants will be selected along with case managers assigned to help them.
It’s a great model, and the program makes perfect sense – people who have been living on the streets, in their cars and under bridges aren’t equipped to negotiate the maze of red tape required to get help from state and nonprofit agencies without assistance. Now, they tend to get a little help at a time – a few weeks at a rescue mission, or a voucher to spend a week at a local motel – which isn’t enough to keep them out of the harsh weather all winter.
If they get sick, which is likely, they go to the emergency room, where their tab is eventually picked up by the hospital’s charity care, which is subsidized through higher rates for paying patients. A simple infection can turn into a $100,000 medical bill, and when homeless patients are released back on the street, it’s easy to get sick again and return to the ER.
There’s no question that providing housing for the homeless is the right thing to do, for humanitarian reasons. But it also makes economic sense, so cities can spend less money and still help more people. In 2005, Utah did a study that found the average annual cost for emergency services and jail time for each chronically homeless person was $16,670. The cost to house them and provide case management services was only $11,000 per person.
My biggest fear is that some residents of conservative, red state Wyoming, where people are traditionally expected to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, will mistakenly look at Housing First as another type of welfare program and not give it a chance to succeed. Pendleton said he knows that it’s easy to generalize about the entire homeless population and consider people lazy, because that’s exactly how he used to feel.
“I grew up on a ranch, where you learn to work hard,” Pendleton recounted. “I used to tell the homeless to get a job, because that’s all I thought they needed.”
It wasn’t until he began actively working with the homeless that he realized, “These are my brothers and sisters. When they’re hurting, we’re hurting as a community. We’re all connected.”
It gives me hope that the person most responsible for turning the situation around in Utah said he had to undergo a “major paradigm shift” to see that the chronically homeless needed much more than his advice to get a job. Another positive sign is that several Utah communities that have resisted Housing First and considered it controversial are starting to come on board with its philosophy.
“It’s our eighth year, but they are finally starting to come together to support Housing First,” Pendleton said.
There’s no reason to believe that Wyoming can’t achieve the same level of success as Utah has had. Our two largest cities, Cheyenne and Casper, both have core groups of homeless that number in the dozens who have been living on the streets for many years, and are back each winter if they don’t freeze to death. There may be less chronically homeless in smaller cities, but they still exist, and Housing First can work for them, too. As Pendleton noted, all it takes in each community are some key city officials to provide support and other members of the community to champion the cause.
I don’t care whether people support the program because it’s the right thing to do, or because they realize it saves them money in the long run. Whatever their motivation, people need to explore innovative solutions for Wyoming’s increasing homeless population, and not keep doing the same things over and over.
Despite the best intentions of government officials, social workers and nonprofit organizations to create a system in Wyoming where the homeless can get some help if they manage to stick around and fill out the right paperwork, the numbers show that it just isn’t working. If we first provide shelter to those who desperately need it, with no strings attached, people then have a fighting chance to battle whatever problems led them to live in the streets in the first place.
By giving them a roof over their heads instead of a hospital bed or jail cell, Wyoming communities can show that they are both compassionate and good stewards of public funds.
Let the moral outrage and "I got mine" begin!
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"But it also makes economic sense, so cities can spend less money and still help more people. In 2005, Utah did a study that found the average annual cost for emergency services and jail time for each chronically homeless person was $16,670. The cost to house them and provide case management services was only $11,000 per person. "
So, give them something to save money from giving them something.
Captain Killhammer McFighterson stared down at the surface of Earth from his high vantage point on the bridge of Starship Facemelter. Something ominous was looming on the surface. He could see a great shadow looming just underneath the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, slowly spreading northward. "That can't be good..." he muttered to himself while rubbing the super manly stubble on his chin with one hand. "But... on the other hand..." he looked at his shiny new bionic murder-arm. "This could be the perfect chance for that promotion." A perfect roundhouse kick slammed the ship's throttle into full gear. Soon orange jets of superheated plasma were visible from the space-windshield as Facemelter reentered the atmosphere at breakneck speed.
I know the idea of providing some of your own resources to help the others in your community whom are less fortunate is quite a contested notion in the United States, but in Canada we have seen subsidized housing in some of our cities dramatically cut crime rates, delinquency, emergency health care expenditure, and poverty levels. Basically everything that your article is arguing.
Call me a bleeding heart liberal for supporting it, but there is mathematical proof that providing housing for the homeless is economically viable and in fact saves more money. Nice article OP.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. There are PLENTY of perfectly good abandoned homes in Detroit. Start a program to help these people get sober and relocate them to Detroit, give them jobs at lower wages and help the city recover from its current woes with the promise they're salary will normalize as the economy improves. The influx of people to Detroit will basically help the economy of the area repair itself on its own accord (with proper financial management) basically killing a gak ton of birds with one stone...
okay, I'm sure its not that simple, but its nice to think so.
CoALabaer wrote: Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
2013/12/20 20:44:24
Subject: Re:Solve Homelessness? Give People a Home
Caseworkers were assigned to help them become self-sufficient, but there were no strings attached – if they failed, the participants still had a place to live.
What would a "failure" be in this case? If the guy relapses in to doing nothing but drugs and drinking will he get to keep the home?
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Reckoner wrote: I know the idea of providing some of your own resources to help the others in your community whom are less fortunate is quite a contested notion in the United States, but in Canada we have seen subsidized housing in some of our cities dramatically cut crime rates, delinquency, emergency health care expenditure, and poverty levels. Basically everything that your article is arguing.
.
To be honest, that is something we have, section 8 housing.
5000pts 6000pts 3000pts
2013/12/20 20:56:33
Subject: Re:Solve Homelessness? Give People a Home
Caseworkers were assigned to help them become self-sufficient, but there were no strings attached – if they failed, the participants still had a place to live.
What would a "failure" be in this case? If the guy relapses in to doing nothing but drugs and drinking will he get to keep the home?
Huh, never thought a program like that would work. Cool article OP.
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Reckoner wrote: I know the idea of providing some of your own resources to help the others in your community whom are less fortunate is quite a contested notion in the United States, but in Canada we have seen subsidized housing in some of our cities dramatically cut crime rates, delinquency, emergency health care expenditure, and poverty levels. Basically everything that your article is arguing.
Call me a bleeding heart liberal for supporting it, but there is mathematical proof that providing housing for the homeless is economically viable and in fact saves more money. Nice article OP.
I think the most hotly contested point in any of these discussions is what constitutes, "less fortunate".
Here in the US we have seen some pretty egregious and blatant examples of people abusing the hell out of the system.
Case in point. I think around Thanksgiving the EBT (food stamp) cards went wonky allowing you to charge any amount to them. Did some of the recipient owners immediately purchase thousands of dollars of stuff? Yes.
It is those people. Those egregious and blatant abuses that harden most people's hearts and make us/them say, "feth 'em all. Give 'em nothing".
Captain Killhammer McFighterson stared down at the surface of Earth from his high vantage point on the bridge of Starship Facemelter. Something ominous was looming on the surface. He could see a great shadow looming just underneath the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, slowly spreading northward. "That can't be good..." he muttered to himself while rubbing the super manly stubble on his chin with one hand. "But... on the other hand..." he looked at his shiny new bionic murder-arm. "This could be the perfect chance for that promotion." A perfect roundhouse kick slammed the ship's throttle into full gear. Soon orange jets of superheated plasma were visible from the space-windshield as Facemelter reentered the atmosphere at breakneck speed.
When I was a kid, I lived about 3 blocks from the projects. Within 20 years time, the projects had to be torn down due to vandalism and crime.
"Giving" people something without requiring that they have an interest in it's success, never worked. Utah's program with the use of case workers looks like a better option than just "giving" people something.
Prevention has never been something we Americans have been interested in; we would much rather deal with the problem after it has started, rather than stop it from happening in the first place (and thus costing us more money).
Anyway, I like George Carlin's solution for the homeless (NSFW for language):
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me." - Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks
Reckoner wrote: I know the idea of providing some of your own resources to help the others in your community whom are less fortunate is quite a contested notion in the United States, but in Canada we have seen subsidized housing in some of our cities dramatically cut crime rates, delinquency, emergency health care expenditure, and poverty levels. Basically everything that your article is arguing.
Call me a bleeding heart liberal for supporting it, but there is mathematical proof that providing housing for the homeless is economically viable and in fact saves more money. Nice article OP.
See... this misconception is wrong. Providing our own resources is something we love to do. Being told we HAVE to provide our own resources, that is what we are resistant to.
Full Frontal Nerdity
2013/12/21 06:00:28
Subject: Re:Solve Homelessness? Give People a Home
Tannhauser42 wrote: Prevention has never been something we Americans have been interested in; we would much rather deal with the problem after it has started, rather than stop it from happening in the first place (and thus costing us more money).
Anyway, I like George Carlin's solution for the homeless (NSFW for language):
Came here to post this. Exalted.
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Orks: 3000
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Warriors of Chaos: 2000
But the homeless need homes or some form of shelter. Denying them this seems to have a bigger impact than simply giving it to them (in terms of cost and benefit).
WarOne wrote: George Carlin was visionary for his time.
But the homeless need homes or some form of shelter. Denying them this seems to have a bigger impact than simply giving it to them (in terms of cost and benefit).
You assume that they would actually be able to care for the house. People are not homeless just because they can't afford houses. In the US there are plenty of places to go to get government housing, just look at the problem that surround such places.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/12/21 06:20:11
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Its also cheaper to pay me one million dollars then it is to incarcerate me for life for peeing on the sheriffs car everyday.
this guy has the right idea.
in all seriousness,
as long as they are willing to work, not doing drugs/crime, sure its a great idea to spend 11grand to house them instead of 16g's to incarcerate them or deal with their vagrancy.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2013/12/21 07:43:36
2013/12/21 07:40:26
Subject: Re:Solve Homelessness? Give People a Home
Andrew1975 wrote: People are not homeless just because they can't afford houses.
This has been my experience too. I've done a fair bit of time in soup kitchens and going on midnight runs delivering sandwiches and clothing, and yeah, I know it's anecdotal... but most of the homeless people I have met and spoken with have severe addiction and/or mental issues that caused them to be homeless in the first place. Those problems are not going to disappear if they have a place to live.
I have absolute no problem with supplying homes to the least fortunate in our society but I have little belief such an approach would work on it's own merits without a supplemental support system to go with it. I would be in favor of a much more involved program that would entice businesses to invest in entry level positions that aren't tied to a physical location, buying up lots of real estate as previously suggested in resident-desperate Detroit, and getting these guys into treatment programs while also providing jobs and stability. I imagine that would have too many moving parts and require too much startup capital to be workable though.
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2013/12/21 11:34:28
Subject: Re:Solve Homelessness? Give People a Home
easysauce wrote: ...as long as they are willing to work, not doing drugs/crime, sure its a great idea to spend 11grand to house them instead of 16g's to incarcerate them or deal with their vagrancy.
Okay, I can play devil's advocate. What about individuals who aren't willing to work? What about the drug addicts and criminals? What about the mentally ill homeless? Buy them a house? Okay, but what about their addiction, medical condition, or unemployment? And what about the non-homeless who are having their credit ruined because they defaulted on their mortgages? Obama supposedly put in a program for them and it wasn't "just buy them a house".
For what it's worth, just getting someone off the street and out of that environment could probably go a long way to helping people kick those drug habits.
It must be pretty difficult to do much of anything else when you have nothing to do all day and you're literally sleeping in every drug dealer's office.
I watched American Psycho the other week, and the only thing that I didn't think was funny was when he killed the Homeless guy, Al, and his innocent dog. He was so mean to that guy, before he killed him of course. It made me really think differently about homeless people.
If only there were cheap manufacturing jobs that required little physical or mental skill that needed to be filled quickly to meet demand....
2013/12/21 13:17:03
Subject: Re:Solve Homelessness? Give People a Home
easysauce wrote: ...as long as they are willing to work, not doing drugs/crime, sure its a great idea to spend 11grand to house them instead of 16g's to incarcerate them or deal with their vagrancy.
Okay, I can play devil's advocate. What about individuals who aren't willing to work? What about the drug addicts and criminals? What about the mentally ill homeless? Buy them a house? Okay, but what about their addiction, medical condition, or unemployment? And what about the non-homeless who are having their credit ruined because they defaulted on their mortgages? Obama supposedly put in a program for them and it wasn't "just buy them a house".
If you accept the cost benefit analysis where it is cheaper to house them rather than let them loose in the streets, then I would support such a program and see if it works.
Of course, the cost of doing this can vary on a case by case basis.
Reckoner wrote: I know the idea of providing some of your own resources to help the others in your community whom are less fortunate is quite a contested notion in the United States, but in Canada we have seen subsidized housing in some of our cities dramatically cut crime rates, delinquency, emergency health care expenditure, and poverty levels. Basically everything that your article is arguing.
Call me a bleeding heart liberal for supporting it, but there is mathematical proof that providing housing for the homeless is economically viable and in fact saves more money. Nice article OP.
See... this misconception is wrong. Providing our own resources is something we love to do. Being told we HAVE to provide our own resources, that is what we are resistant to.
Does that not basically summarize the entire partisanship issue with your Congress and other issues within your government? That you can't stand bipartisanship and that an idea is only good if you came up with it?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/12/21 18:23:16