> But for nine months we reduced homelessness and structural health problems to single digit or less and it almost certainly saved money.
> That's the truly amazing thing: the net budget effect on federal and state funded interventions was probably better, and they STILL unwound the programmes.
According to the treasurer of Victoria, they allocated $150 million budget to provide this accommodation for 2000 people. That comes out to $75,000 per person. According to the University of Queensland, taking a homeless person off the street saves about $13,000 in additional medical and policing costs. So the covid measures certainly didn't save money. Normal state provided housing comes a lot closer to the $13,000 mark if you take a look at how much those programs costs, but they tend to be at 100% capacity all of the time. It's also worth noting that while Victoria reports providing 2000 homeless people with housing during the pandemic, the state is reported to have somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 homeless.
There are definitely not 20k+ Victorians out on the streets every night. That figure almost certainly includes the vast majority of homeless people who are sleeping on mates' couches etc.
Thing is, if you make a reasonable service available, "the vast majority of homeless people who are sleeping on mates' couches" will be competing for the same spots with those who actually are sleeping on the streets otherwise.
If some sort of safety net is available, then some people who'd otherwise find some solution to pay rent - whether it's going over their heads in payday loans or getting into petty crime or resorting to prostitution or some other way - some of them will choose to actually use that safety net instead. So the demand for that safety net if it's available should be expected to be larger than the number of people who "fell through" in the absence of it.
Sure, but those people who sleep on friends couches, or in homeless shelters, or in boarding houses occasionally are all people who sleep rough sometimes. Gathering statistics on this is not the easiest thing to do, but I’ve read more than once that about two thirds of Australia’s homeless sleep rough regularly. So while there might not be 25,000 people sleeping on the streets of Victoria on any given night, a good portion of that number will find themselves doing it often enough.
Meaning if you want to keep those people from sleeping out in public places, then you really do need to provide all of them with housing, and also that you certainly can’t provide only 2000 of them with temporary housing and then claim that you’ve solved homelessness (even only temporarily).
That's a forward commitment for 18 months of secure housing and 24 months of complete support for mental and physical health and welfare. Its not the amount spent to take 2,000 people off the streets right now.
You're correct, if you look at the line items in the budget the cost to get 2000 people off the street right now is actually $42,250 per person per year. Still far from $13k. Also depending on what document you look at it's either 2000 people or 1700 people so it's somewhere between $42,250 and $49,705.
> That's the truly amazing thing: the net budget effect on federal and state funded interventions was probably better, and they STILL unwound the programmes.
According to the treasurer of Victoria, they allocated $150 million budget to provide this accommodation for 2000 people. That comes out to $75,000 per person. According to the University of Queensland, taking a homeless person off the street saves about $13,000 in additional medical and policing costs. So the covid measures certainly didn't save money. Normal state provided housing comes a lot closer to the $13,000 mark if you take a look at how much those programs costs, but they tend to be at 100% capacity all of the time. It's also worth noting that while Victoria reports providing 2000 homeless people with housing during the pandemic, the state is reported to have somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 homeless.