Permanent housing versus shelters. For a long while I had believed that more shelters would assist the homelessness issue, but with research towards homelessness assistance I came up on the topic concerning the effectiveness of shelters and permanent housing. The main points are financial costs and path to self-sufficiency. When looking up past instances of permanent housing projects it has appeared to be more effective in getting individuals to a point where they’re able to work again and self-sustain themselves.
When in permanent housing, the claim is that with stable housing, it provides a sense of security and stability. With that in mind it leads to a homeless individual being able to seek out more help and increases their chances of becoming self-independent. How can one hope to get back on their feet if they have to seek shelter or necessities everyday after all? In the video provided above, the housing solution shown contains a portion of the building where those who live there can learn skills such as in the cooking area that turns into a restaurant during the day. This example is a fantastic illustration of just what these permanent housing buildings can do if done right. Incorporating an environment that puts them into situations where they can be a working person and in this case even pay them for it (since it is a restaurant too) gives them some form of job training that they can take with them later on. As they also say in the video it’s almost no different from an apartment and it’s flexible that they have different types of room options such as studios, or double rooms that can house siblings.
They also bring up an interesting point that I think becomes a concern with these offers. The goal of course is to get them back working and independent as soon as they possibly can, but they’re aware that some, especially young individuals may not be able to do it within their 1 year binding contract. It becomes more effective to provide programs that will help them get there sooner, but while the effort is to in the future open up another room, it’s reasonable not to expect residents to leave after that year.
Is it really cost saving? For Multnomah county, there was a claim that it would cost $8000 per household to help an individual attain permanent housing whereas $8000-1000 to maintain one bed in a shelter. I think the cost savings eventually come in the effort that’s provided to get them off the streets and become no longer homeless where the success rates of shelters being less than 10% just has them going back. In combination due to permanent housing taking more time to build as well as housing a smaller number of people at a time, shelters however still provide a very temporary solution to housing bigger numbers. This will only improve as more permanent housing solutions are built over time.
Some statements from calcoast that I think summarize the idea is that instead of getting them ready to move out of homelessness, you give them a roof and services which will then make it easier for them to assess their problems.
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