Salt Lake City, Utah - Data on homelessness and the criminal justice system offer fresh evidence that an effort to place chronically homeless Utahns in supportive housing saves lives and money.

The numbers were compiled by housing, law enforcement and justice officials, and support a new strategy for combating homelessness. Moving people directly from the streets into affordable apartments where they can get treatment and job training. The data were released Tuesday at a press conference on the eve of Utah’s 5th Statewide Homeless Summit. “We’ve known housing improves lives by giving people a fresh start from which to begin to work on other problems, find a job and re-connect with family and society. Now we can show housing saves taxpayer money too,” said Gordon D. Walker, Director of the Utah Division of Housing and Community Development. Researchers sorted through Salt Lake City police records to determine what it costs to arrest, book and jail people for petty crimes like loitering and public intoxication. They looked at a five-year period, from 2002 to 2006, and identified 39 top arrestees, all of them men and homeless.

In five years, the 39 men logged 15,000 nights at the Salt Lake
County jail, data show. That’s an average of 3,000 jail nights a year. In addition, they logged an average of 837 arrests annually, 433 bookings and 155 ambulance calls. The cost to taxpayers: $2.6 million. Eight of the 39, however, were able to move into housing as part of a statewide plan to end chronic homelessness. Post-housing, they show a 65 percent average drop in bookings and 55 percent reduction in jail time. “Housing is more cost-efficient and humane than the alternative,” said Salt Lake City Police Chief Burbank. “We can’t arrest our way out of social problems like homelessness and drug addiction.”

The data also are a grim reminder that lives are at stake. Seven of the 39 have since died. “The scope of homelessness is bigger than impacts to our jail system. Every homeless man or woman has a different story and charts a unique path to recovery and self-sufficiency,” said Walker. “But housing is clearly the solution, and we need more of it to reach our goal.”