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Housing is exponentially more expensive than shelter. Sure, in an ideal world, housing should come first, but we don't live in that world. We live in a world of budget constraints. We need to practice harm reduction.
Some others here have highlighted that "shelter services" is not the same thing as an actual shelter. People can't stay as long as they want, they don't have a secure place to store their belongings, and they can be dangerous. Here is a post with sources that outlines why permanent supportive housing is more cost effective than temporary overnight shelters
Sure, overall. But the cost of someone living partially or fully on the streets is spread between public and private. The cost to the State is typically less.
I can't follow the links to any of the sources in that post, btw.
Yeah, not sure what's up with that. Here are the working links as best I can tell:
Lastly this link did seem to work but I thought the statistics and the FAQ were helpful.--
Sorry, finally got around to reading your links. I can't find the LA study, but the Portland comparison is a bit of an outlier compared to the homeless problem in most cities. The cost of acquiring housing in large cities is much larger.
Most of the studies seem to compare the cost before and after placing people in permanent housing, but not factoring in the cost of the housing itself. And they speak about the benefits to individuals placed in housing, not the society wide impacts. If we could vastly improve the life of one person a year at the expense of all other homeless people, that's a terrible bargain.
Shelters are not a cure-all, they're harm reduction. And I still suspect they're massively cheaper (in cost per number of people helped) than procuring housing for everyone.