The longer a person is homeless, the harder it becomes to find housing. But homelessness doesn’t have to be a self perpetuating problem. Watch and share the video and find out how you can help change the way Alameda County develops housing and help Brett and more people like him.
Housing the Homeless: Why the Most Humane Solution is Also the Most Economically Responsible
Communities often struggle with the human costs of homelessness, seeing illness and injury on the streets, whole families displaced to encampments, and people sleeping in doorways. What’s less visible is the staggering economic cost of homelessness. Between hospitalization, medical treatment, mental health treatment, police intervention, incarceration, institutionalization, and emergency shelter, expenses to local government add up quickly.
Public systems are already paying an increased cost for people who are unhoused. The Economic Roundtable calculated the annual cost of homelessness in Santa Clara County at $520 million annually. And that’s not even counting the environmental impact of urban camping and the effect a large homeless population can have on small businesses.
The increased costs from serving chronically homeless individuals often exceed the cost to house them. Sleeping rough often means malnutrition, dehydration, and a lack of access to outpatient and continuing care. All of these exacerbate medical issues, making recovery difficult and slow. Stable housing with supportive care systems in place can drastically reduce the costs of public services spent on the chronically homeless. The Economic Roundtable study tracked the service costs for homeless individuals across all County services.
103 individuals in the top 10% of service utilizers were given permanent housing, over the course of a year these individuals experienced a 68% reduction in service costs for an average reduction of $42,706 per individual, exceeding the cost of housing those individuals.
This means that, in many cases, keeping people homeless is more expensive to communities than housing them. By making the cost of housing lower, Affordable First makes housing an increasingly cost-efficient strategy for addressing homelessness, potentially saving local public systems millions of dollars. This strategy is especially viable for those with the greatest need for care.
The challenge with implementing housing as a viable strategy to solve homelessness in many of our cities is the lack of supply of housing and the lack of a dedicated funding stream for housing. Affordable First helps to address both of these problems. Affordable First developments use the profits from market-rate units as a built-in funding stream for permanent, supportive housing. Leveraging these profits to address homelessness can result in much larger economic savings for public systems, making the most humane course of action the most financially responsible for the community.
Alameda County California Housing Development Campaign
Affordable First launches affordable housing development campaign in Alameda County.
Alameda County, CA—In the face of a nationwide housing crisis, Affordable First is launching their affordable housing development model in Alameda County.
The Affordable First model is designed to help areas grow and develop without pushing people out. “The Affordable First model allows communities to develop new, affordable housing for every income level,” says campaign leader Peggy Moore, “including supportive and transitional housing for the area’s more vulnerable residents.”
New housing development is not keeping up with population growth in the bay area. The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) estimates that from 2007-2014 permits were issued for just 57% of the housing needed. The data shows that for people who are very low, low and moderate income only 29%, 26%, and 28% of the need was met. In many Bay Area communities, the housing need is not being met for any income level.
This is impacting the affordability of housing for all income levels. This lack of affordability is driving middle class individuals and families—people with full-time, stable employment—into doubling up, living on couches, or living in their cars. For those struggling to find employment, senior citizens, and people suffering long and short term disabilities, the effects are even worse.
In the current development model, a developer partners with an investor to build market rate units for profit. By replacing the private investor with a public institution and building market rate and affordable units together, Affordable First changes the goal from profit to affordability and growth.
This means neighborhoods stay together; people can live where they work; low income families don't have to lose their homes; and aging adults can continue to be a part of the communities they helped to build.
Charles's Story
Homelessness doesn't always look like homelessness. The housing shortage affects people at every income level, employed or not. Help Affordable First change the way Alameda County develops housing.