What the Housing First Model did to Utah’s chronic Homelessness
The American effort to solve homelessness has been steadily increasing over the past few decades. Initiatives such as new shelters and medical assistance programs are leading the charge in attempting to tackle this persistent issue. However, despite these efforts, the homeless population has not seen substantial changes. This raises an important question: Is Homelessness unsolvable, or have we just been trying to solve it in the wrong way?
The state of Utah believes that they have a solution, in a system that they have called the Housing First Model, and its effectiveness is almost unbelievable. The model addresses homelessness by prioritizing the placement of individuals into permanent housing without a barrier of entry such as sobriety. The model then allows for these individuals to stabilize their life before addressing challenges such as mental health issues or substance abuse.
Utah found that this was also a cheaper solution than their current aid programs. In the state, 75% of the Homeless population was Temporarily Homeless, 10% were Episodically Homeless, and 15% were Chronically Homeless, meaning they have been homeless for more than 365 days. Despite this, they found that 60% of the available homeless resources was being consumed by the Chronically Homeless population, a cost that amounted from anywhere of 25 grand to 45 grand a person. Dispelled by a lack of results, Utah began exploring alternative solutions.
Homeless Demographic
The model was first implemented at a small scale, with Utah selecting 17 of the most challenging individuals off of the street, and provided them with permanent housing. The results were astonishing. 22 months into the test, and all 17 of the individuals were still living in the housing, with it also being easier for the individuals to tackle other challenges such as substance abuse. With a promising start, Utah implemented the model at a state wide level from 2005 - 2015. The results were left unchanged. Over that 10 year period, the Chronically Homeless population of Utah decreased by an astonishing 91%.
The Chart Illustrates the Number of Chronicically Homeless people in Utah from 2005-2015, and the percentage of the population that they make up. Provided by BYU Daily Universe
Now while it is notable that Utah started off the program with a substantially smaller homeless population then states like New York or California, results as promising as that should be more than enough for the Housing First Model to be considered in those states, and hopefully implemented with results as strong as what we saw in Utah.