Shelters Cost More Than Apartments

According to a report released today by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, every level of government (city, state, federal) could provide homeless families and individuals with permanent housing for less money than it costs to shelter them. "In almost all cases," the report concludes, "the costs associated with providing housing for individuals and families who are homeless within a program exceeds the Fair Market Rent cost of providing rental assistance without supportive services."

It's an infuriating and frustrating thought. Here's a government study ("Costs Associated with First-Time Homelessness for Families and Individuals," if you want to read more) that lays out plain and simple how inefficient and wasteful the government is when it comes to housing the homeless. This is about more than pinching pennies, though; people are in sometimes-dangerous, sometimes-demeaning, often-overcrowded shelters instead of in apartments where they can feel at home and start to develop the self-reliance and self-esteem needed to transition out of homelessness for good.

To collect the data, HUD examined 9,000 homeless families and individuals in six cities from 2004 to 2006. Any housing or poverty data collected before the recession is hardly relevant, but knowing that rents have come down in many cities and instances of homelessness have jumped since 2006, an even wider gulf between the cost of shelters and apartments seems entirely plausible. At least HUD is addressing first-time homelessness.

Of course, some homeless families need three bedrooms to live comfortably and some don't, some homeless individuals need substance abuse treatment to move forward and some don't. So the costs vary. But the report showed that emergency family shelters were the most expensive form housing of all. In Houston, a month in an emergency family shelter costs an average of $1,400 -- double the average rent for an apartment in Houston. This is not difficult math. Yes, homeless families will need some services to ensure that whatever caused homelessness before doesn't cause it again. But the savings still stand.

University of Pennsylvania professor Dennis Culhane told USA Today that most taxpayers don't know they're paying so much more than they need to in order to "to maintain a cot in a gymnasium with 100 other cots."

The report does lend credibility to the stimulus act's Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, which put $1.5 billion toward keeping people in their homes with rent and utility bill assistance. But, obviously, that's not enough. In 2008, 1.6 million people stayed in shelters.

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