Housing less expensive than sheltering, study says

From the Kalamazoo Gazette:

It costs nearly twice as much per month to house a family in an emergency shelter in Kalamazoo than it does to provide transitional or permanent housing, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Kalamazoo was one of six places nationwide that HUD examined in a study on the cost of first-time homelessness among families. The study, announced Thursday, was conducted over a 18-month period in 2004 and 2005.

Read the full article: http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/03/homelessness_costs_more_than_h.html

This study echos what has been shown nationally throughout a variety of research: That the extra support and administrative costs required to shelter a person that is homeless exceed the costs of simply providing housing.

When a person has a solid living situation, it stabilizes their whole live. They are more likely to be self sufficient and hold a steady job. In Kalamazoo, we covered some of the progress of housing the homeless in Kalamazoo in 2009 in our Affordable Housing Partnership video. You can watch it here: