Housing project for hard-core homeless pays off, By Alexandra Zavis, June 8, 2012, Los Angeles Times: “An ambitious program to provide permanent housing to some of Los Angeles County’s most hard-core homeless more than paid for itself, yielding a net savings of $238,700 over two years, officials said Thursday. The long-awaited findings, presented to a countywide panel on homelessness, support a growing consensus across the country that getting the most entrenched street dwellers into permanent homes and providing them the services they need to stay off the streets can save municipalities money. More than 51,000 people are homeless on any given night in the county, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. About a quarter of them are considered chronically homeless, meaning they have been homeless for at least a year and suffer from a serious physical, mental or substance abuse problem…”
Tag: Housing First
Chronic Homelessness – New Orleans, LA
Chronic, longtime homelessness has been nearly halved in Orleans and Jefferson parishes, By Katy Reckdahl, May 23, 2012, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “For 28 years, Miller Osbey survived with the help of a shopping cart. But for six weeks now, the massive plastic buggy has been parked inside Osbey’s living room, near the front door. Osbey, 60, patted the cart fondly as he passed it earlier this week. ‘I ain’t gonna let it go,’ he said. Less than two months ago, Osbey moved into one of 2,116 apartments in Orleans and Jefferson parishes that house homeless people with severe disabilities. The apartments aim to keep even severely impaired homeless people housed by pairing rental vouchers with intensive social services and mental health and medical services, paid for by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Housing Authority of New Orleans and various state agencies. A separate federal program provides similar housing and services through the local Veterans Affairs hospital for homeless veterans…”
Homelessness and Housing – Texas, Florida
- Decline in homelessness spurs effort to build long-term housing, By Renée C. Lee, May 6, 2012, Houston Chronicle: “Houston’s homeless population declined by 5 percent this year, creating a positive backdrop for a new collaborative effort aimed at moving more people off the streets and into long-term housing. The number of sheltered and unsheltered homeless dropped from 8,242 counted in January 2011, to 7,830 counted in January 2012, according to the annual tally by the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Fort Bend County. In addition, the number of people in permanent housing with additional services, known as permanent supportive housing, increased slightly, suggesting the concept might be a promising approach to reducing homelessness in Houston…”
- For homeless kids, school can be a struggle, By Tasnim Shamma, May 8, 2012, Miami Herald: “Students wondering where they’re going to sleep at night may have trouble paying attention in class. In Miami-Dade County, the number of kids without a home is in the thousands and growing. The county school district counted more than 4,406 students who were homeless in the 2010-11 academic year. Eleven-year-old David Thomas and his eight siblings used to be included in those statistics…”