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Journal Articles & Academic Research
Dive into urban strategies for visible homelessness; find academic research, journal articles, learning briefs and more. We go beyond parroting back these interventions and their results by adding context to each study. Our goal is to empower property owners, city staff, and policymakers with clear insights into what works, identifying gaps, and highlighting solutions applicable to their unique challenges.
Category
Title-Link
Abstract
Our Commentary
Learning Brief
This learning brief examines the multidimensional nature of the costs associated with homelessness. We synthesize a comprehensive body of research to provide readers with a deeper understanding of the wide-ranging costs and consequences of homelessness.
Where to start and why it stays on the top of our page. With numerous links to health conditions, mental health, child development and family structure. Also provided are multiple sources of the societal costs of homelessness data including government spending on programs such as, health care systems, legal systems, municipal clean-up efforts, and so much more. A MUST READ!!!
Cost Calculations
The purpose of this study was to describe a novel approach to calculating service use costs across multiple domains of service for homeless populations. A randomly-selected sample of homeless persons was interviewed in St. Louis, MO and followed for two years. Service- and cost-related data were collected from homeless individuals and from the agencies serving them. Detailed interviews of study participants and of agency personnel in specific domains of service (medical, psychiatric, substance abuse, homeless maintenance, homeless amelioration services) were conducted using a standardized approach. Service utilization data were obtained from agency records. Standardized service-related costs were derived and aggregated across multiple domains from agency-reported data. Housing status was not found to be significantly associated with costs. Although labor intensive, this approach to cost estimation allows costs to be accurately compared across domains. These methods could potentially be applied to other populations.
Keywords: Homeless, service use, cost, psychiatric disorders, alcohol use disorders, drug use disorders, longitudinal
An good source of some relatively recent homelessness cost calculations for services provided to the homeless. (Service unit cost data were obtained and costs were derived using a methodology developed at RTI International, known as the Substance Abuse Services Cost Analysis Program (SASCAP))
Interesting Information includes: Lifetime legal problems (64%), Lifetime Alcohol use disorder (59%), Lifetime Cocaine use disorder (45%), Lifetime serious mental illness (32%) which may be biased by their location, but still distressing. Medical costs of ~$3000 per year. Psychiatric costs of ~$1600 per year. Substance abuse of ~$1000 per year. Municipalities can use the data from Table 3 to get a basic understanding of cost per person and multiply that against their unhoused count in their annual point in time survey.
Historical Materials
A PDF of the book by William H. Whyte that summarizes research undertaken as part of the Street Life Project for the New York City Planning Commission.
Analysis of human behavior in public space One of the earliest analysis of urban strategies for visible homelessness we have.
Historical Materials
Oscar Newman’s (Architect & City Planner) publication for the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Office, that claims that architectural and environmental design plays a crucial part in increasing or reducing criminality. “Defensible space therefore is a sociophysical phenomenon” – the book includes multiple case studies. The key premise is that “All Defensible Space programs have a common purpose: They restructure the physical layout of communities to allow residents to control the areas around their homes.”
The origin of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, or CPTED theory. The claim that it is “helping the Nation’s citizens reclaim their urban neighborhoods“, is obviously far fetched. This is arguably the pre-cursor to the broken windows theory of James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in 1982, that is still popular (and widely criticized) in law enforcement circles to this day.