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How Blue Houston Decreased Their Homelessness By 60%
This editorial outlining how Democratic-led Houston, despite a red state government, decreased their homeless population by 60%, should be a model for the nation:
Opinion: How Houston’s homelessness breakthrough could be a national game-changer
We should note that homelessness got worse here before it got better. In 2011, the Houston area had one of the largest homeless populations in the country. With the threat of homelessness only increasing, and dismay over decades of substantial investments without results, our community was propelled into action.
...
This became particularly critical during Covid-19, when homelessness became a present danger to many people who were already living on the brink. As challenging as it was, we reframed this crisis as an opportunity to do more to assist them. The city of Houston and Harris County strategically invested federal pandemic aid, alongside contributions from private philanthropy, allowing our system to house, or offer homelessness diversion services to, more than 12,000 people during the pandemic. We housed the most vulnerable people first. When the average person sees someone experiencing homelessness and struggling with mental illness, they assume that individual is dangerous or needs hospitalization. Our experience is that most of these folks stabilize in housing with the appropriate level of services. We have also found that housing with supportive services is the solution to encampments — sites where unhoused people set up groups of tents. We have holistically decommissioned dozens of encampments by placing close to 400 people on the path to housing.
...
We are doing this difficult work not just because it is the moral thing to do, but also because it is the fiscally responsible thing to do. It is less expensive to house an individual and provide services (we estimate about $18,000 per year) than the multiple of costs of putting people in jail or allowing them to suffer on the streets and being forced to make regular use of our emergency rooms (which national estimates range from $30,000 to $50,000 and up).
..
Since 2012, more than 28,000 people who have experienced homelessness in the greater Houston area have been housed. This has resulted in a more than a 60% decrease in overall homelessness in just over a decade.
We should note that homelessness got worse here before it got better. In 2011, the Houston area had one of the largest homeless populations in the country. With the threat of homelessness only increasing, and dismay over decades of substantial investments without results, our community was propelled into action.
...
This became particularly critical during Covid-19, when homelessness became a present danger to many people who were already living on the brink. As challenging as it was, we reframed this crisis as an opportunity to do more to assist them. The city of Houston and Harris County strategically invested federal pandemic aid, alongside contributions from private philanthropy, allowing our system to house, or offer homelessness diversion services to, more than 12,000 people during the pandemic. We housed the most vulnerable people first. When the average person sees someone experiencing homelessness and struggling with mental illness, they assume that individual is dangerous or needs hospitalization. Our experience is that most of these folks stabilize in housing with the appropriate level of services. We have also found that housing with supportive services is the solution to encampments — sites where unhoused people set up groups of tents. We have holistically decommissioned dozens of encampments by placing close to 400 people on the path to housing.
...
We are doing this difficult work not just because it is the moral thing to do, but also because it is the fiscally responsible thing to do. It is less expensive to house an individual and provide services (we estimate about $18,000 per year) than the multiple of costs of putting people in jail or allowing them to suffer on the streets and being forced to make regular use of our emergency rooms (which national estimates range from $30,000 to $50,000 and up).
..
Since 2012, more than 28,000 people who have experienced homelessness in the greater Houston area have been housed. This has resulted in a more than a 60% decrease in overall homelessness in just over a decade.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/opinions/homelessness-solutions-houston-model-eichenbaum-nichols/index.html
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