Recently, I came across an article about the cost of housing homeless people being less than the cost of the services used by cities when they are not housed. That prompted me to look for a little more information. There have been several studies on the subject. One in Los Angeles found, "The typical public cost for residents in supportive housing was $605 a month. The typical public cost for similar homeless persons was $2,897, five-times greater than their counterparts that are housed." Acting on that information, two or three U.S. cities now claim they have eliminated homelessness completely by the simple expedient of housing people.
Of course, anyone who was brought up with any concept of compassion has always believed people ought to have a place to live. The argument of self-styled realists from the Reagan era forward was that we couldn't afford to make that happen, but the evidence shows we can hardly afford not to. When Baltimore officials are always singing the budget blues, while people who were brought up without any notion of compassion complain about the offense to their aesthetic sensibilities of seeing homeless people on the streets, it is hard to understand why our public servants — particularly those with political ambitions — are not actively working to create a program to eliminate homelessness in Baltimore.
What is there about a program that makes people's lives better, saves the city money and makes it more attractive to visitors and newcomers that they cannot bring themselves to accept?
Katharine W. Rylaarsdam