When people who had been homeless for years moved off the Denver streets and into apartments, they were far less likely to end up in hospital emergency rooms or get locked up in jail.
But they still died at the same rate as those who lived outside.
That’s the grim finding from a new study of Denver’s social impact bond program, which sends outreach workers to find the highest users of taxpayer-funded services including hospitals, detox centers and the jail. Hundreds of people who were chronically homeless have been housed through the program, which began seven years ago.
Previous research showed that the first 250 participants had cost the government a total of $7.3 million per year when they lived outside and in shelters and cycled through the health care and criminal justice systems. After they were housed, researchers found a 40% reduction in arrests, a 30% reduction in jail stays, a 65% decrease in detox services and a 40% drop in emergency department visits.
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