Friday, January 18, 2008

“The Business Case for Ending Homelessness” in Dallas

By Larry James of Urban Daily

Several months ago, Central Dallas Ministries and the Central Dallas Community Development Corporation engaged the J. McDonald Williams Institute to conduct a different sort of study on homelessness in Dallas. Our intent was to "prove up" the business case for ending homelessness in our city. In other words, what would be the positive economic impact on our community if we could eliminate homelessness?

The study is titled, "The Business Case for Ending Homelessness: Moving From a Scattered and Costly Scheme of Emergency and Revolving Door Care to a Coordinated, Managed, Permanent Solution to the Local Costs of Homelessness" (statisticians go for long titles!).

In 2000, the City of Dallas, Dallas County, other government agencies and charitable organizations spent a total of $20,341,000.00 serving the homeless population in our community. By 2006, that total had more than doubled to an estimated $43,785,577.00 annually.

Recent "point in time" census counts of the homeless population indicates that there are somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 homeless individuals on the streets of Dallas at any one time. About 1,000 are chronically homeless.

The chronically homeless use 50% of the shelter capacity of our community.

Almost half (43%) of those surveyed in 2006 reported that they were homeless due to the lose of a job. In that same count, 12% reported that they had been homeless on four or more occasions in the past three years.

Here in Dallas more than 45 agencies offer housing, food, medical care and counseling/employment services to the homeless population.

The chronically homeless tax, not only the limited resources of emergency shelter providers, they also put a strain on hospital emergency rooms, police, ambulance and other public services. Excessive numbers of homeless persons in a given area--on the streets without permanent housing--can depress property valuations and tax revenues. A study conducted in 2000 estimated that the City of Dallas and other local jurisdictions were losing $4.1 million per year due to low property valuations in the southern section of Dallas' Downtown area.

What would be the actual costs associated with effectively ending homelessness in Dallas?

The development of 1,200 units of supportive housing would effectively end homelessness as we know it in Dallas.

The cost of providing 1,000 single resident occupancy (SRO) units would be approximately $25 million or $25,000 per unit. In addition, 200 family units could be developed for a cost of $7 million or $35,000 per unit. Additional operating funds for developing these properties would be about $3 million or $2,500 per unit. Total development costs for the needed endeavor would come in at around $35 million or $29,166 per unit. Spread over a 30-year period the annual costs would total $1.6 million or $972 per unit.

Operating costs to provide the supportive services for such a development strategy would total $4.2 million annually or $5,189 per unit.

In short, for less than the cost of one year's service expenditures for our current system of managing and serving the homeless population in Dallas, we could develop all of the housing needed to take every chronically homeless person off the streets and provide exactly the supportive services they would need to maintain themselves in the new housing! In addition, we would be able to sustain the plan for 1/10 the cost we are now spending each year. These savings could insure the development of more fit and affordable housing.

Pegasus News content partner - Urban Daily

See more stories in:

• Poverty > Homeless

Comments

Scott Doyle Verified

What specific 'business case' are we talking about, here? What-if's presented above don't seem to add up. If 1,000 are labeled chronically homeless, and there's an average of 4,500 other homeless peeps, there's still gonna be over 75% of homeless on the streets...using all the resources they do now.

The only business-related anything discussed outside of current budget for homeless is low property values in southern downtown, which won't increase much (if at all) with over 3/4 of those people still out there.

How exactly is having a permanent place to sleep going to mitigate any services costs other than healthcare? Keep in mind people who have homes still get sick and go to the doctor, sometimes even the hospital. How much of the $43.8M in 2006 was temp housing versus food, medicine, etc? How are the proposed $4.2M operating costs magically lower than current costs, especially considering maintenance & utilities, additional personnel, etc? Without a cost break-down it's tough to believe.

$5,200 annually per unit means $433 a month. You're telling me that you're going to provide food, prescriptions/regular medical care, electricity, running water, maintenance, laundry service, etc for $433 a month...and the cops will never be called out to a building full of people who couldn't sustain housing on their own? Are you feeding them a bowl of rice at every meal, and sugar pills for their diabetes?

Seems to me you're talking about scraping together $35M for development costs without taking hardly any funding away from the current system on an annual basis. Maybe I'm missing something.

6 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Pavel Lishin Verified

Do you have a link to this study? Because I've got a few holes to punch.

1. Are you sure it's a permanent solution? Are the chronically homeless in their situation just because they couldn't pay a few months' rent? Or do they have other problems that cause them to have to live on the street?

2. How is building 1,200 "Hobo Holes" as I choose to call them going to solve the problem of 5,000 homeless on the streets? The 1,000 chronically homeless will make themselves at home, and then you have 200 units left for the 4,000 people who will rotate through the system. Maybe.

3. This system will be abused. How are you going to screen applicants? How do you prove you've been homeless, and aren't just looking for a cheap place to crash? I had to live two hours' drive away from my work at my parents' place when I first moved here; if I could cut my commute down to 30 minutes by living in a Hobo Hole, I probably would have dipped my clothes in filth and stumbled up asking for a place to live until I got back on my feet.

6 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )