Homelessness and the Cost of Doing Nothing
By Albert B.
Kelly
One issue that never seems
to go away for most municipalities is homelessness. To begin with, the issue
comes with a heavy financial cost. I’m
not talking about the costs associated with solutions as much as I’m talking
about the costs of doing nothing.
For any community,
homelessness is not revenue neutral. Between ER visits, costs for various
medical procedures to patch a body up, the man-hours connected with multiple
arrests, administrative costs for law enforcement and the courts, and the time
in jail; you begin to see that one homeless individual can blow through tens of
thousands of dollars in services.
If I understand the data
correctly, the western side of Cumberland County, in 2013 the 08302 zip code
had roughly 63 adults and 15 children (78 total individuals) seeking shelter at
the shelter on Mays Landing Rd. While not all of these individuals are part of
the cycle of ER visits, arrests, and county jail; just 20 adults (25%) in that
cycle could chew up $18k a piece in ER-arrest-jail costs in the course of a
year amounting to $360,000.
If we extend out to the
whole of Cumberland County, the total number of individuals seeking shelter services
for 2013 came in at 450 individuals; if 112 (25%) consume $18,000 a piece in
ER-arrest-jail costs, it comes to about $2 million.
Then there are the costs
you can’t calculate; like the amount of revenue that bypasses a community
because of negative perceptions; the shoppers who take their retail dollars
elsewhere because of a few semi-sober ill-clad souls drifting about asking for
spare change. It makes residents angry; so much so that cities across the
country have passed some hard legislation.
In Columbia SC, an
ordinance was passed giving the homeless the option of relocating or getting
arrested, though it was later repealed. In Raleigh NC, an ordinance was
proposed that would prevent religious groups from feeding the homeless in a
downtown park.
Philadelphia passed a
similar ordinance about feeding the homeless in their parks. Fortunately, religious
organizations said they would risk arrest rather than comply. Tampa FL took the
step of passing an ordinance whereby police could arrest anyone they saw sleeping
in public or storing personal property in public.
I understand the
frustration and anger that communities feel toward the homeless population, with
all of the problems that come with homelessness; how it undermines efforts to
promote growth and revitalization. However, I’m not at all sure that punitive
legislation is the answer.
For one thing it’s
inhumane; for another, we can’t “enforce” them away or magically make them
disappear. But maybe there’s an alternative. In the last 8 years, Utah has reduced
their homelessness problem by an astounding 78% and they believe they can
essentially eliminate it by 2016.
Utah’s approach is solid
in its simplicity; providing homes to the homeless. It’s a state program, but
it is working and it is less costly than the cycle of arrests and ER visits
that come with a heavy enforcement stance.
In a cost-benefit
analysis, Utah determined that it cost about $11,000 to provide a homeless
person with a simple dwelling unit and the services of a social worker as
compared to the $16,650 price tag that came with the arrest-ER model. And beyond
cost savings, I’m sure it has a positive impact in the area of “perception” and
recapturing retail dollars lost from having a bad image.
That said, I wonder if it
would not be possible in our area to assemble a working coalition with the
faith-based community, volunteers, non-profits, and government to develop a
model that can transition people from homelessness to a productive stable life.
Any discussion should begin with the
same sort of cost-benefit analysis as happened in Utah, though costs would likely
be higher in New Jersey.
While our model might look
different from another state, there are perhaps many ways to construct a
successful program. In Utah, it was providing single dwelling units. Here, a
transition might be done in phases starting with a basic shelter and support
services and ending with more permanent housing and a stable life.
The successful models have
shown that the faith based community plays an integral part in the homeless
success stories. But no matter what approach we take, I think it is worth some
careful analysis because in the end, it’s more economical to act than to keep
the status quo.