NYT editorial: Housing and a Chance

If the federal government is going to end homelessness among veterans in five years, as Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki has vowed to do, then it will have to find a way to help the hard cases. These are the long-term street people — men mostly, many fragile in mind or body, often addicted to alcohol or drugs. They shuttle from shelter to street to emergency room, burning up caregivers’ energy and social-service dollars.

A new program in Los Angeles seeks to break that cycle for a small number of the most troubled veterans using a strategy known as “housing first.” This approach, which has been successfully used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for nearly a decade, doesn’t wait for people to sober up or get a job before they are given a place to stay. A permanent home, provided through a Section 8 voucher, instead becomes the anchor that makes all the rest possible: addiction services, therapy, sobriety, a steady job.

Critics worry that the vouchers come with no strings attached, so the incentive for positive change disappears. The numbers tell a different story. Federal officials reported a 30 percent drop in homelessness from 2005 to 2007, crediting the “housing first” programs. But the downturn has since hit hard, and new crops of soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan are returning to a brutal job market. Veterans currently make up an estimated 13 percent of the people in America’s shelters. There are believed to be more than 17,000 homeless veterans in Los Angeles County alone.

(More here.)