Study: Rental units better for homeless, city budget
Study finds apartments often are less expensive than housing individuals and families in shelters
Published 5:30 am, Friday, March 26, 2010
When helping first-time homeless, it's cheaper for some communities to house individuals and families in rental apartments than in emergency shelters or transitional housing, according to a federal study released Thursday. In Houston, for example, it cost almost $1,400 a month to place a family in an emergency shelter compared with the cost of $743 month to place them in a two-bedroom apartment.
The average monthly cost to the city's homeless system to house, feed and provide other services to an individual is $2,257 and for a family, $11,627.
The figures were released Thursday in the Department of Housing and Urban Development's first comprehensive study on what it cost to house the newly homeless.
“Overall, this expands our knowledge of the true cost of homelessness,” said HUD Deputy Assistant Secretary Mark Johnston. “It's a critical first step in response to homelessness.”
Communities can use the information and methodology to determine whether they need to retool their programs to better serve the population and get the most bang for their money, he said.
A little more than 7,000 individuals from four cities, including Houston, and almost 4,000 families from six cities, also including Houston, were tracked over an 18-month period beginning in 2006.
The study's most significant finding is that in almost all cases, the cost of providing housing in homeless programs exceeds the fair market rent cost of providing rental assistance with support services.
“I think it is a good finding to show us that the way we have approached homelessness maybe not as effective as we like,” said Thaos Costis, chief executive officer of Houston's SEARCH Services, which finds permanent housing for the homeless and provides rental assistance. “It opens up our eyes to look at things differently.”
Other key study findings include:
• • Overnight emergency shelter for individuals has the lowest cost per day.
• • Emergency shelter for families is equal or more expensive than transitional housing.
• • Transitional housing for individuals is more expensive than permanent housing with supportive services.
Length of stays examined
Certain patterns among first-time homeless also emerged in the study. Among the cities examined, 50 percent to 65 percent of single adults and 58 percent to 72 percent of families stayed in a homeless program only one time during the study period.
But individuals who used programs more than once used them frequently. The average stay for individuals was more than double the average number of stays for families.
Families had fewer stays but stayed in programs for longer periods (three to 10 months) than individuals (five to 10 weeks), the study said.
In Houston, 65 percent of individuals had only one stay, with an average of three stays and an average of 39 days in a homeless program.
Seventy-two percent of families had 1.4 stays with an average of 113 days in a program.
The more time spent in a shelter or transitional housing and longer periods between stays generally means higher costs, the study said.
Costis said the study builds the case for the housing-first concept, which is popular in northern states. The goal is get to people out of emergency shelters and into permanent housing immediately.
“In the South, we're still working on the premise that you need to be sober, mentally stable and have a job before we can help you,” she said. “We're studying these other entities and how do they effectively approach it so we can service at the permanent level and not the transitional level which can be expensive.”