

Experimental Australian scheme to eradicate long-term homelessness - jamesk_au
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/30/experimental-victorian-scheme-could-virtually-eradicate-homelessness

======
visoz
The reason this worked is because 1) the charity took the time to do economic
modelling that shows the actual benefit to government in dollars, and 2) the
scenario is actually tractable to this sort of modelling.

There are a lot of nonprofits out there that can't get funding because their
benefits are difficult to quantify, or because their benefits are too diffused
and doesn't impact government bottom line directly.

~~~
ams6110
Also they seemed to have avoided the corruption that is rampant in social
services. My town tried something very similar to this, starting off with a
new apartment building for the "chronically homeless" which very curiously was
constructed at a per-square-foot cost about 4x market averages.

~~~
jjoonathan
I wonder how many of these people use Dan Pallotta's 2013 TED Talk to
rationalize their own corruption.

------
gwern
> After three years, researchers found that 75% of the Journey to Social
> Inclusion participants were still in stable housing, compared with 58% of
> the other group.

The analyzing-results link is the fulltext, for those who missed it:
[https://www.sacredheartmission.org/sites/default/files/publi...](https://www.sacredheartmission.org/sites/default/files/publication-
documents/j2si_sustaining_exits_from_longterm_homelessness_2015.pdf)

------
EricSu
It's great to hear this turned into a win-win. A high rate of the homeless
people in the program remained in stable housing after 3 years and modelling
show that the program helps the government save money by investing in homeless
people rather than dealing with them with police and medical services.

------
jwilliams
This mirrors some of the results of the Housing First program in the US - and
similar elsewhere:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First)

There are quite a few analyses of the results in Utah, which saw a substantial
reduction in homelessness.

------
tomjen3
So we go from 58% being non-homeless to 75% being non-homeless in return for
spending a lot of money on them?

Somehow that doesn't seem like a lot. I would have expected the original
number to be much smaller.

It will be interesting to see how this works out in the long term, as well as
a way to focus on the 17% who benefitted from the program.

~~~
Ralith
> Over 10 years the government will save $1.32 for every $1 invested for
> fuller support for the chronically homeless, Sacred Heart Mission estimates

32% return on investment sounds like a lot to me.

~~~
duckingtest
That's an estimated 2.8% annually for a high-risk investment. It doesn't
really make financial sense.

~~~
duskwuff
I'm not sure how you're coming up with "2.8% annually". This is an ongoing
effort, not a one-time investment; the local government is spending money
every year, and _each year_ they estimate they're saving $1.32 for every
dollar they spend.

~~~
murbard2
1.32^(1/10)-1

------
crusso
They had great results, it seems, but the headline is misleading. Homelessness
was not eradicated.

~~~
kolinko
"Scheme to eradicate" means that eradication was the goal, doesn't mean that
the scheme was successful.

~~~
shasta
The subject is ambiguous since headlines often use "to" in place of "is to"
(as in "Smith to resign").

~~~
kolinko
You're right.

