From the Christian Science Monitor:

Safe Haven, a residence in Santa Monica, takes in those who have been on the streets more than a year and have a disability, and helps put them in permanent housing. The program is part of a growing nationwide effort to reduce the number of people who are chronically homeless.

Officially, this means anyone who has lived on the streets for at least a year and has a disability. In practice, it often means people who have slept under bridges or on park benches for as long as 20 years, have several disabilities, and are the most difficult for social agencies to reach, usually because they suffer from mental illness.

For society, this group has turned out to be costly: Recent studies indicate that the chronically homeless consume $35,000 to $150,000 a year per person in medical and psychological services, as well as in the time of police, courts, and jails. Housing them, even with substantial support services, costs a fraction of that – from $13,000 to $25,000 annually, according to experts.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 4:39 pm and is filed under housing, mental health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.