Calculating the Costs to Government of Helping the Homeless

Financial Implications of Public Interventions on Behalf of a Chronically Homeless Family, by Ellen Hart-Shegos, calculates the price of government assistance for a homeless family in Minneapolis from 1991 to 1999. The study tracks the costs of child care, housing, health care, substance-abuse treatment, and other services for a composite family headed by a single mother with three children. The report then compares that total to the cost of providing low-cost housing with services that would help the family overcome the problems that have led to its poverty. Higher investment in what the report calls “supportive housing” would reduce public costs over time, the researchers find. The report is a supplement to Supportive Housing Continuum: A Model for Housing Homeless Families, a report previously published by the Family Housing Fund, and is available online at the charity’s Web site.

Publisher: Family Housing Fund, Midwest Plaza West, Suite 1650, 801 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, Minn. 55402; (612) 375-9644; fax (612) 375-9648; http://www.fhfund.org; 32 pages.