If you spend time in any American city, you know that the United States has an enormous homeless population. Men, women and children (and sometimes dogs and cats) dot our sidewalks, asking for help or handouts. Some people – like us – believe we should help these people. But, some others believe that helping homeless people is just throwing good money after bad and that they ought to rot in the streets (a view which we find perplexing).
But, policy leaders in not so liberal areas are driving a new policy movement called Housing First. It turns out that giving people housing first is both the moral and the cheaper way to help homeless people. Even though politicians intended to cancel funding for homeless services, we continue to spend money on homeless people anyway – at the emergency room, the court house and the jail. As a result, it’s cheaper for us to fund apartments for homeless people than to wait until they show up in crisis.
Listen to Coco Soodek Live to hear about the astonishing results of this new policy movement and to listen to people who work with homeless people around the country.
P.S. Sorry for the poor sound quality on this episode. It sounds a little muffled, but the content is so good, you won’t want to miss it.
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