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Massachusetts statewide pilot Housing First program for chronically homeless individuals data show a 67% decrease in annual health care costs per person after housing placement.
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Data from Seattle/ King County's WA 1811 Eastlake Housing First initiative demonstrates $4 million in savings.
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Sioux Falls/Minnehaha County, SD permanent supportive housing pilot for 20 individuals documents 50% decrease in per person costs for health care, detox, law enforcement, and other county services.
New data from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Seattle/King County, WA, and Sioux Falls/Minnehaha County, SD demonstrate clearly that the random ricocheting of vulnerable and disabled persons experiencing chronic homelessness through health care, treatment, and law enforcement systems comes at great expense to the taxpayer and with no improvement in the lives of these individuals. The new data affirm the importance of jurisdictional commitment to strategies that invest in housing solutions with supportive services that end the homelessness of those who are not only the most vulnerable and disabled but also the most costly to the community, and in doing so, improving the quality of life for everyone - housed and homeless alike.
Seattle/King County 1811 Eastlake Project
 Findings from the first controlled study of the Seattle/King County 1811 Eastlake project for chronic inebriates were presented at a news conference in Seattle this week and are also presented in a new issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Health Care and Public Service Use and Costs Before and After Provision of Housing for Chronically Homeless Persons with Severe Alcohol Problems.
The study, funded by the Substance Abuse Policy Research Program (SAPRP) of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by University of Washington professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and adjunct professor of psychology Dr. Mary E. Latimer, documented cost savings of over $4 million for the 95 individuals who were the subject of the study and who had previously cost local taxpayers $8.2 million in hospitalizations, emergency services, jail time, detox, and sobering center visits. After being housed, the per person costs per month declined to $1,492 after six months and $958 after one year. The total cost for all 95 participants for one year was $4,094,291, a reduction of more than $4 million. The researchers also found that residents drank less the longer they remained housed, and their cost to public systems continued to decline.
Outgoing King County Executive Ron Sims, who has been nominated by President Obama to be Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, attended the news conference along with Dr. Latimer and Downtown Emergency Service Center Executive Director Bill Hobson, whose agency operates 1811 Eastlake. Mr. Sims, acknowledging that he’d originally been skeptical about a Housing First strategy for chronically homeless alcoholics, said “This is an extraordinarily successful program” and noted, “Our return on investment has exceeded any expectation.” Read More.
Massachusetts State Data on Home and Healthy for Good (Housing First) Initiative Shows Dramatic Medicaid Savings
When the Massachusetts Legislature passed an FY 2007 line time to invest state resources in a new statewide pilot Housing First program for chronically homeless individuals, the expectation was that the Home & Healthy for Good (HHG) initiative would replicate the national success rate of Housing First and end the costly random ricocheting of chronically homeless individuals through state systems. New state data released last week from an unprecedented state research initiative relying on Medicaid claims data show a 67% decrease in annual health care costs per person after housing placement. The Home & Healthy for Good Initiative is operated by the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance (MHSA) with twelve partner agencies around the state.
The Massachusetts Medicaid system tracked chronically homeless individuals successfully stabilized through the statewide initiative and used individual state Medicaid health care payment data to identify annual health care costs per person that decreased from an average of $26,124 before housing placement to $8,500 after housing placement, a savings of $17,625 per person. Read More.
Sioux Falls/Minnehaha County 10 Year Plan Permanent Supportive Housing Pilot
Project Safe Home, a permanent supportive housing pilot for 20 individuals undertaken as one implementation strategy of the Sioux Falls/Minnehaha 10 Year Plan, has documented a 50% decrease in per person costs for health care, detox, law enforcement, and other county services. Costs dropped from $32,000 per person to $16,529. The most dramatic decline was in health care costs, which fell from a total of $109,109 in the first quarter of the initiative to $12,730 in the last quarter of the pilot program, according to data presented to Minnehaha County commissioners by Human Services Director Hugh Grogan. Read More.
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