Housing Homeless Who Are Mentally Ill Cuts Their Emergency Costs, Study Says
Getting mentally ill homeless people off the streets and into supportive
housing costs taxpayers only slightly more than leaving them to fend for
themselves, according to a study to be released today.
Researchers at the
University of Pennsylvania Health System in Philadelphia studied nearly 10,000
mentally ill homeless people in New York, half of whom were placed in
government-funded housing with mental-health assistance. The individuals who
were not housed ended up costing taxpayers, on average, $40,500 a year for their
time in emergency rooms, psychiatric hospitals, shelters and prisons.
But
those provided with housing and mental-health assistance used far fewer
emergency-type services, the study found. Including that huge savings,
researchers found setting up the mentally ill homeless in housing with support
services costs only about $994 more than the $40,500 these individuals run up
when they don't have homes.
While the five-year study focuses only on New
York, homeless advocates say the results could have a powerful effect across the
country, where an estimated 110,000 chronically homeless people have mental
illnesses. The research could help convince government leaders about the
cost-effectiveness of doing more to solve the problem of mentally ill homeless
people in major cities.
“A considerable amount of public dollars are
spent essentially maintaining people in a state of homelessness,” said the
study's lead author, Dennis P. Culhane, associate professor of social welfare
policy at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Culhane added that the
cost-reduction estimates of housing the mentally ill in his study are
conservative, considering he didn't include the savings that come from fewer
burdens on the police and court systems, nor the economic impact of homelessness
on local businesses and tourism.
“This study shows that providing
supportive housing to homeless people with psychiatric disabilities is not only
the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do,” said Carla Javits, President
of the Corporation for Supportive Housing, a national nonprofit group on
homelessness and a funder of the study. The study also was backed by the Fannie
Mae Foundation in Washington, the United Hospital Fund of New York, the Conrad
N. Hilton Foundation in Los Angeles and the Rhodebeck Charitable Trust in New
York.
The study is among the most comprehensive estimates of the costs
society incurs because of the mentally ill homeless. The researchers obtained
the costs of specific individuals, matching their names and Social Security
numbers as they wended their way through various shelters, hospitals and prison
systems during several years. It took Mr. Culhane four years to get seven New
York City and State agencies that oversee shelters, jails and hospital
reimbursements just to agree to share their data with him for this
study.
Among the findings, the researchers determined that the average
homeless person with severe mental illness works up a huge bill in one year by
spending 4.5 months in a shelter, two months in state psychiatric hospitals,
seven weeks in various hospitals, and nearly three weeks in jail or
prison.