
How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness - teslacar
http://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how?20
======
mabbo
The 'Housing First' model was really pushed hard by Stephen Harper as Prime
Minister of Canada. It was weird because he is such a staunch right-wing kind
of guy, yet here he was putting money towards what seems like a very left-wing
socialist idea.

But he, like Lloyd Pendleton in this article, apparently figured out that it
saves a lot of money, ideology be damned.

Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to
some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes.

~~~
ergothus
> Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to
> some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower
> taxes.

I've certainly heard this argument from the (few) libertarian sources that are
considering basic income. They are opposed to "entitlement" programs, but see
a (theoretically) cheaper entitlement program as better than an expensive one.
(Perhaps they also think that a flat-sum basic income is easier to lower or
hold flat than a complex web of social programs. Or I may be being cynical)

OTOH, it can still be a hard sell to constituents. The US has known for at
least a decade that spending more on IRS agents would earn more money than it
would cost. No new rules, no new regulations, just enforcement of the rules we
have. Seems like an easy decision to me, but few politicians, left or right,
want to be caught saying we should have more tax enforcers.

Pity.

~~~
tn13
> . The US has known for at least a decade that spending more on IRS agents
> would earn more money than it would cost.

Isn't that proven to be a mostly false notion? Lower taxes tend to bring in
more revenue and create more employment.

~~~
ergothus
> Lower taxes tend to bring in more revenue and create more employment.

Two responses:

1) A bit of an irrelevant point, since we're not talking about RAISING taxes,
we're talking about collecting taxes that are due under current rules. (You
can argue that's an effective tax increase, but I doubt people/companies that
aren't following the rules are a good basis for policy - with lower taxes
they'll still cheat)

2) But if we do consider your point...I don't know that your point has been
shown at all. Sure, if you're on the far side of the Laffer curve, which is
50-70% tax rate (depending on whose numbers you trust), but we're at 20-38%
tax rate in the US (and that's marginal rate, not overall rate). I'd also look
to the efforts of politicians like Brownback in Kansas, where a massive tax
cut led to...a tanking of the local economy. I don't recall of hearing of a
single supply-side success in post-WWII America, but I'll admit to non-perfect
knowledge.

Also, as a liberal, I support taxes because I support many govt programs.
Taxes themselves are NOT exciting - if we could really raise more govt revenue
by cutting taxes, I'd be all for it, but I've not seen any reliable evidence
for that (again, unless you're on the other side of the Laffer curve) and I've
seen at least limited evidence against it.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Our top marginal rate is 39.4%, not 38. And that's only Federal income tax.
Add in 3.8% Medicare and top marginal rates at the state / city level
approaching 15% for some locations and top marginal income tax rate on earned
income approaches 60% for some (wealthy) individuals. Not to mention sales
tax, property tax, capital gains, etc.

Whether that's too high or too low is a separate discussion. But saying we're
at 38% just isn't true.

~~~
ergothus
My bad, you are correct, 39.4% is the top marginal tax rate in the US, not
38%.

> Whether that's too high or too low is a separate discussion

Sounds fine: while exploring the numbers here (because frankly, I'm curious -
tax rates are NOT a strength of mine) I'll not engage in that debate

> Add in 3.8% Medicare

Just to clarify that's the TOP rate, and that includes the employer share
(which is arguably fair to include)

> top marginal rates at the state / city level approaching 15% for some
> locations

I'm less inclined to talk about the local taxes of extreme locations when
discussing US taxes - Those would just induce people to move if too high
(particularly since we're talking about people making over $400,000/year) and
their new location could still be US.

So that would bring top marginal rates to 44.2%, and effective rates somewhere
around 28-29% (assuming I didn't screw it up)

There is likely some minimum level of local taxes to apply there, (as well as
a "reasonable minimum" to apply so we exclude rare extremely low results just
like I rejected the extremely high ones) but I have no idea how to find that
(1%? 3%?)

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austenallred
I'm confused by this. My brother has an office in downtown SLC near the Rio
Grande building, and it's pretty clear when I visit him that there are
hundreds of homeless people living in that neighborhood alone. Pioneer Park is
also covered in homeless people.

If that is less than 200 people either I don't understand what "homeless"
means or something is... off. How does one define "chronic homelessness?"

I really want it to be true. I have seen first hand how hard so many people
work to help the homeless; through nonprofits, the government, and the LDS
Church. But declaring "victory" over homelessness rings pretty hollow if you
walk the streets of Salt Lake City.

~~~
nsnick
Salt Lake City has a lot of seasonal homeless, people who come for the summer
and leave for the winter. Seasonal homeless are not counted as chronic
homeless.

There are no homeless people anywhere else in the state so the ones you see in
Salt Lake are it.

Not all panhandlers are homeless. Most of the homeless in Salt Lake City seem
to disappear at night. There are no massive homeless camps like you see in San
Francisco, Portland and Seattle. A lot of the panhandlers in Salt Lake have
houses and consider panhandling to be their day job.
[https://www.ksl.com/?sid=27782692](https://www.ksl.com/?sid=27782692)

~~~
jonknee
Having Winter weather that will kill people sure makes not counting seasonal
homeless a great way to say you don't have any homeless problems.

~~~
trhway
Also shipping your homeless and/or mentally ill to CA.

~~~
paulddraper
Wha? Why CA? Las Vegas is way closer.

~~~
dragonwriter
Nevada has been caught shipping theirs to CA, so that's still shipping them to
CA, just less directly.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
Really? Do you have a reference?

~~~
dragonwriter
Specifically, mentally ill homeless:

[http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-Nevada-reach-
tenta...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-Nevada-reach-tentative-
settlement-in-6552026.php)

~~~
eco
That's pretty funny because Nevada accused Utah of shipping their homeless
there in the run up to the 2002 Olympics.

------
meritt
Utah didn't solve homelessness. The primary "reduction" was changing the
definition of chronic homelessness and now less people are being counted.

[http://www.aei.org/publication/on-utahs-91-percent-
decrease-...](http://www.aei.org/publication/on-utahs-91-percent-decrease-in-
chronic-homelessness/)

~~~
nsnick
I think you need to read your own article. Its conclusion states, "Utah
experienced a less dramatic, but still impressive 71 percent decrease in
chronic homelessness since 2005." Are the numbers slightly inflated? Sure. Is
it better than anything the west coast is doing? Absolutely.

~~~
azakai
That's not where the linked article ends, though, that's just page 2 out of 6:

> Utah experienced a less dramatic, but still impressive 71 percent decrease
> in chronic homelessness since 2005. Yet should we trust even the point in
> time counts? In fact, [..]

So the article is not just claiming the numbers are merely "slightly inflated"
as you state.

(I didn't read the rest in detail, so I'm not saying the points are valid or
not. Just that your quote is out of context.)

------
hackermailman
Vancouver tried the same thing. The made a policy of eradicating homelessness
by X date and the city bought up SROs to put them in and other housing
options.

The problem is once the rest of Canada's homeless heard about this they came
in droves, often given one way bus tickets by police, so it's impossible to
solve chronic homelessness without some kind of national effort. Utah this
strategy works because there isn't a flood of people going there like they are
San Francisco or LA's Skid Row.

It would be great if governments could have some kind of yearly conference to
compare data and strategies to figure out what works/doesn't work at scale.

~~~
3JPLW
That's precisely what NACo — the National Association of (US) Counties — does.
They have initiatives on both data driven justice[1] and housing[2].

1\. [http://www.naco.org/resources/programs-and-services/data-
dri...](http://www.naco.org/resources/programs-and-services/data-driven-
justice)

2\. [http://www.naco.org/news/roof-of-their-
own](http://www.naco.org/news/roof-of-their-own)

------
saosebastiao
I have no doubt that this program works, even if the success has been
overstated [0]. What we really need to think critically about is how
_exportable_ the concept is. And really, it comes down to one singular reason,
housing costs[1]. High housing costs like those in most coastal cities
contribute to higher inflows into homelessness and lower outflows out of
homelessness, which means that higher housing costs increase the total number
of homeless people _and_ the duration of homelessness. They also increase the
capital and administration costs of administering the program, often by a
factor of two or more.

So in a city like Seattle or San Francisco, you're going to have drastically
more people to house, for drastically longer periods of time, and at higher
fixed and variable costs. I have no problem believing that this solution if
exported to San Francisco, New York, or Seattle, would cost anywhere between
1-2 orders of magnitude more than SLC as a percentage of total population.

IMO, anti-housing-development trends in our most economically important cities
truly have become the US' largest source of injustice in the 21st century [2].

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/27/utah-
homeles...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/27/utah-homeless-
shelters-housing-first)

[1] [https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-salt-lake-city-
re...](https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-salt-lake-city-rent-trends)

[2] [https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/a-26-year-old-mit-
gra...](https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/a-26-year-old-mit-graduate-is-
turning-heads-over-his-theory-that-income-inequality-is-
actually-2a3b423e0c#.vr3asyt59)

~~~
tomcam
>High housing costs like those in most coastal cities contribute to higher
inflows into homelessness and lower outflows out of homelessness

Citation needed. Because another reason the homeless migrate to these places
is that they spend massive sums on homeless outreach, which draws people in
from other areas.

I don't know what percentage of homelessness is due to either cause, but I
don't see that you do either (not trying to be mean).

~~~
saosebastiao
It was a logically deductive assertion, although I'm sure there are studies
out there. Homelessness is defined as not having a home, and all else equal, a
relatively higher cost of having a home will result in relatively more people
not having a home. The extent that other city-specific factors contribute to
the problem may change absolute numbers in either direction, but relative
homelessness should always be higher given higher housing costs.

~~~
tomcam
In absolute terms one would have to agree with your logic. But from what I
understand the vast majority of homeless are drug addicts and/or mentally ill.
I think (no data to back me up at the moment) that this dwarfs the number of
people who become homeless literally because they are priced out of the
market.

------
John23832
Imo housing first has always been the best option. Think about how hamstrung
people feel trying to conduct their lives out of hotels... now imaging being
homeless.

------
hl5
Homes for the homeless. What an obvious solution! May I suggest medical care
for the sick next?

I'm glad some cities are starting to recognize the level of dignity and hope a
private residence with private facilities can give to impoverished families.
Sadly it appears these types of programs seem to only be funded when wrapped
in some questionable marketing or political gain.

~~~
itstriz
Food for the hungry would be a good one too.

------
randyrand
As an aside, this is a perfect illustration of the states-rights approach
going well.

States are testing incubators for trying new ideas.

~~~
therealdrag0
For sure, but with state boarders so easy to cross, it can be messy to
compare. Homeless, guns, etc, can all migrate.

------
snowpanda
> Utah says it won 'war on homelessness', but shelters tell a different story

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/27/utah-
homeles...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/27/utah-homeless-
shelters-housing-first)

~~~
cpncrunch
And they're now building a new shelter:

[http://www.sltrib.com/home/4979717-155/live-state-leaders-
di...](http://www.sltrib.com/home/4979717-155/live-state-leaders-discuss-
progress-of)

------
suresk
It was interesting to hear about this, then drive down Rio Grande street or
around Pioneer Park and see the massive tent cities and tons of homeless
people. Things got really bad downtown the last year or so.

I wonder if this is a case of Salt Lake doing such a good job that homeless
from other states were attracted here?

~~~
richmarr
They're focused on the chronic homeless, so there's still a problem even
before proposing migration caused by this.

------
wyldfire
> For Joe Ortega, it means ... getting used to being alone.

I would not have figured that moving off the street would be more isolating
than living on the street. Don't these housing options mean that someone else
is living just in an adjacent room or across the hall?

~~~
st3v3r
When you're used to them laying right next to you, with no walls between, then
adding walls is going to be more isolating.

~~~
lostlogin
And more insulating, dryer and safer. Couldn't a dwelling, room or bed be
shared if loneliness was a problem?

------
perseusprime11
I wish there is something we can do in New York City. In the last two years, I
saw a significant increase in the number of homeless people in New York City.
They have no home and take refuge in subways and the bathrooms at Penn
Station.

------
tomcam
This will sound hostile. It is not meant to.

Didn't we do the "housing first" thing decades ago? The Projects in the Bronx?
Cabrini Green in Chicago? Now most of those places are torn down or being
gentrified or are miserable black holes of chaos and crime.

It seems to me that it's really important that residents have some skin in the
game, which may be the difference in the Utah program. It is also notable that
the Mormon church has such deep involvement. Here in Seattle the Union Gospel
Mission has been infinitely at dealing with homeless than the bureaucracy.

------
tfo
[2015]

------
tabeth
I wonder if better/more accessible health care would eliminate homeless as a
side effect. It seems much of the homeless in Boston, anyway is mental
health/health related.

I doubt anyone will say that what Utah did here is _bad_ , but you have to
wonder what's preventing a more comprehensive solution (the answer is
politics, but ideally you'd get a more specific answer).

~~~
xraystyle
It seems to me that largely the issue is there's no mechanism to force people
into treatment for drug/alcohol addiction and mental illness.

Here in Los Angeles the number of homeless who are severely mentally ill is
incredibly high. It's quite common to see homeless people standing on street
corners, yelling and screaming at non-existent antagonists, behaving
bizarrely, urinating and defecating in broad daylight, and creating a general
nuisance for everyone around them.

The same goes for seeing drug and alcohol use in public, especially in places
like downtown LA and Venice Beach.

Seems to me that the homelessness isn't the problem, so much as a symptom of
the underlying issues of addiction and mental illness, and unless people
voluntarily seek treatment for those issues their situation is unlikely to
change.

Whether the healthcare is available or not, the question is moot if you can't
force people to go to rehab and take their meds.

~~~
slv77
In the US the Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that unless an individual was a
threat to themselves or others they couldn't be institutionalized. This was
one step of a much bigger reform of care for those that are disabled or
mentally ill called deinstitutionalization.

In the past those with mental illness or disability were locked up in
facilities with little support for reintegration into society. In many cases
being committed was effectively a life sentence. There were also cases of
abuse of the system where people were committed for rebelling against parents,
homosexuality or political dissidence.

Deinstitutionalization was supposed to transition patients to community based
care but it was never funded to the level that would have been needed to
support the transition. Even in the US today mental health care is typically
the bastard child of the US health care system with minimal coverage. A
$50,000 dollar a year arthritis medication is covered but only a couple of
days to stabilize a patient in a mental health crisis.

I'm not sure if community based care would have ever worked even with the
right funding and that a lot of the addiction and mental health issues may be
related to the lack of environments that support mental health. I'm pretty
sure that the alternative from earlier in the century also isn't the right
approach.

------
Unbeliever69
The situation in Utah is FAR from perfect. I work near a building that was
renovated to house the homeless. These places are often rampant with
prostitution, drug dealing and other nefarious operations. In effect many now
have a roof over their heads, but they now live in what some might consider
slums.

~~~
ythn
What would you have done differently had you been in charge?

------
cpncrunch
>A similar approach was first tried in Los Angeles in the late 1980s and New
York City in the early 1990s.

Does anyone have a reference for this? I did some searching, but didn't find
anything. If anything, the articles I found just said that homelessness in LA
was a continuing problem throughout the 80s until today.

------
vondur
Last time I was in Salt Lake, there were a bunch of homeless people camped out
all over the place. It was really odd, I noticed some of them were just
casually smoking weed. Still not as bad as it is here in the Southern
California area.

------
thebosz
Regardless of how effective or how it's just "changing the definition" at
least it _is_ helping.

Unlike here in Portland where it's just ignored and occasionally the tent
cities get pushed to a different area.

------
tracker1
Definitely better than when they were just buying bus tickets for the homeless
to go to Phoenix and Albuquerque... (Fixing the homeless problem by making it
someone else's problem)

------
NewCathargo
Give every homeless person a $20 thing of nicotine each month.

Stop the ponzi scheme of housing costs.

Teach them skills general enough to plug into a variety of jobs and specific
enough to survive alongside automation.

Giving a chronically homeless person a "home" doesn't make up for the
completely shattered social network they have. And the shattered sense of
civil conduct in a society which literally tossed them to the trash.

My melancholy tells me the above will never happen. Homelessness is a shadow
industry where nobody gets punished for letting relapses happen. Therefore,
nobody "owns" performance in getting the homeless into a housed state. In the
industry, talking points are more valuable than actual "performance".

------
tn13
Homelessness should not be a problem in USA where land is plenty. If
homelessness is a problem it is mostly because cities are not growing
horizontally fast enough.

------
eip
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2zGFXaPn0o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2zGFXaPn0o)

------
rpmcmurphy
Imagine what the states could do with the > $50 billion we are about to send
to our already outsized military.

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brilliantcode
So you redefined homelessness and end up counting less people in order to call
it success.

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Mz
Maybe "enlightened self interest" as a governing principle will catch on.

------
ninju
This an older article...and I think it might have been on HN already

------
Overtonwindow
*From December 2015

