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Rick Gibson's avatar

It always amazes me how expensive “affordable housing” turns out to be, both to have it constructed in the first place and to keep it operating once in place.

I get it, these are needy people, so the operating costs aren’t just building operating costs, they also include social supports, etc. However, advocates of Housing First always say that once the housing situation is settled, the occupants can start to work on their other problems, which would imply that, over time, the need for social supports, etc. might decrease. Never seems to happen, in real life.

I totally get it. One way or another, these unfortunate souls burn through a lot of expensive societal supports, including police encounters, social workers, mental health workers, income supports, shelters, health care encounters (paramedics, emergency, hospitalizations, addictions supports, various other medications). The per night per bed cost to maintain our local homeless shelters is more than a room in a local luxury hotel!

Interestingly, all the advocates still complain that not enough is being done. The fundamental complaint of the homeless is often that they can’t afford a home on the money they have. That’s a gross over-simplification, given the complex issues many of them face. Nonetheless, if you gave most anybody the $100k each that it takes to house people in the affordable housing, most anybody should be able to afford a pretty decent abode.

I suspect there are at least two problems. First, the efforts of all those various “helpers” are not well coordinated. I suspect there’s a lot of duplication and waste. Second, there’s a growing industry around helping the homeless, and that, in part, explains the rising costs. Many of our local advocates seem to end up as employees, then as managers, then they end up running a business bidding for the contract to run local shelters.

Lots of money gets spent, most of it not going to the homeless. It’s going to buy expensive supports for the homeless, buying them from people who are making a pretty good living in this business. Even the guys who are executive directors of “not for profits” seem to do all right, financially!

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