Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Academic Blogs -> the 13th juror

Academic

: the 13th juror

Housing for homeless alcoholics saved taxpayers $4 million

Providing housing to homeless alcoholics, regardless of their sobriety status, reduces health-care use and costs, U.S. researchers report.

They evaluated a type of program called Housing First, which removes the usual housing for homeless requirements of sobriety and mandatory attendance to alcohol treatment programs.

In the year before the study, the 95 housed participants had median costs of $4,066 per month per person for services and legal costs such as shelter and sobering-center use, hospital-based medical services, publicly funded alcohol and drug detoxification and treatment, emergency medical services, Medicaid-funded services, jail bookings and days in jail. The total cost for all 95 participants over one year was $8,175,922.

After entering the program, 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.

Read the U.S. News & World Report article here.

Full post as published by the 13th juror on April 01, 2009 (boomark / email).