Utah is the first state to implement a program that has reduced its statewide homeless rate by 78 percent, putting it on course to end the problem within two years.
The original goal, as outlined in a 2008 state government report, was to end it by 2014, so as 2015 rings in another year, policymakers hope the problem will be done away with. Utah legislators began getting serious about the issue in 2005 when former Governor Jon Huntsman put forward the premise and later instituted the Housing First initiative. It has taken 2,000 men and women off the streets thus far.
What’s the Housing First initiative?
Basically, the state compared costs of emergency room visits and arrests with those of providing housing and social worker oversight — its figures came to $16,670 against $11,000, respectively, so it made sense to state policymakers to take the latter path.
Homeless individuals are provided with apartments for free in the beginning and caseworkers who monitor their struggles to get back on their feet. Even if they fail to make rent payments, they are still allowed to keep the apartment, which is paramount, as the basis of the program is to create housing stability.
Other cities and states are looking at the Utah model, too. As the American renewal website Nationswell reported recently, “Wyoming has seen its homeless population more than double in the past three years, and it only provides shelter for 26 percent of them, the lowest rate in the country. City officials in Casper now plan to launch a pilot program using the methods of Utah’s Housing First program.”
In Denver, where a similar program was put into effect, it was discovered incarceration costs for the homeless plunged by 76 percent, while in-patient nights at hospitals were curbed by 80 percent.
Legislators in other states have taken more troglodytic paths that won’t end their problems. Take Tom Bower, for example, a Hawaii state representative, who made a name for himself walking around Waikiki’s streets with a sledgehammer, using it to destroy the shopping carts used by homeless people. He apparently didn’t stop there. If he came across a homeless person sleeping at a bus stop, he would wake them up. After a lot of negative press, he ended the campaign.
Tampa, Fla., passed a municipal law calling for the police to arrest anyone they saw sleeping in public or storing personal property in public, according to the website Guardian Liberty Voice. The city then passed an ordinance forbidding panhandling downtown. Philadelphia also has a law banning the feeding of the homeless on city property. Raleigh, N.C., also took the steps of outlawing the feeding of homeless people in city parks and property.
In Utah’s case, it hasn’t been Mormon benevolence that’s been behind the program, but simple dollars and cents. But that’s ok. Other media reports say European nations are even studying Utah’s example.