Our meeting on July 23, 2022, included a presentation by Dr. David Snow, Distinguished Professor of Sociology (retired) at UC Irvine. Dr. Snow presented findings of a study done recently in Orange County on who and why people are homeless. Most of the meeting can be found on the video at this link:
Passcode: K#CA0xkS
Some takeaways:
- the number of homeless people is high when the population is high and there is low housing vacancy rate in the area
- the cost of homelessness is about $100,000 a year per person while persons in supported housing cost about half that amount
- homeless people in an area have lived in that area for a long time
- housing first, i.e. getting persons into suitable housing/shelter first then working with them on the services they need is much more successful than providing the services before the housing
- homelessness is a housing problem!