During the last decade, Houston, the nation’s fourth most populous city, has moved more than 25,000 homeless people directly into apartments and houses. The overwhelming majority of them have remained housed after two years. The number of people deemed homeless in the Houston region has been cut by 63 percent since 2011, according to the latest numbers from local officials. Even judging by the more modest metrics registered in a 2020 federal report, Houston did more than twice as well as the rest of the country at reducing homelessness over the previous decade. Ten years ago, homeless veterans, one of the categories that the federal government tracks, waited 720 days and had to navigate 76 bureaucratic steps to get from the street into permanent housing with support from social service counselors. Today, a streamlined process means the wait for housing is 32 days.
As a society we know how to eliminate homelessness. The problem is the political will and the organizational skill to align the elements of the system to provide this outcome.
Eliminating homelessness improves the quality of lives of the individuals who gain a stable residence, their communities in which they reside, and our society as a whole which cares for those with few resources.
Tell others about housing first programs and support them.
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