Spending on healthcare and mental health services will increase significantly upon housing the homeless, as those people begin to seek medical care they didn't previously receive. However, those costs will eventually drop, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
In San Francisco, where the issue of homelessness prompted Mayor Ed Lee (D) in May to launch a Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing with an annual $160 million budget and 200 employees, analysts say housing the homeless is an important part of improving the city's physical and financial health.
Here are four things to know about the effects of housing the homeless on healthcare costs, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
1. According to a report from the city's budget and legislative analyst, after homeless adults initially gain access to housing, the costs of healthcare services increase dramatically. For instance, in a study of 1,818 homeless adults from 2007 to 2015 who entered supportive housing between 2010 and 2012, there was a 199 percent increase in the costs of emergency care, from $11.3 million to $33.9 million. There was an 85 percent increase in the cost for behavioral health services, rising from $3.1 million to $5.8 million, according to the report.
2. However, within a few years of entering housing, the cost declined in every healthcare category: emergency care visits, behavioral health services, welfare and food stamps. The total cost of emergency services decreased to $14 million by 2015. The cost of behavioral health services dropped to $3.3 million in the same year. While the study did not measure the change in costs beyond 2015, the statistics indicate the cost of services will continue to decline every year the formerly homeless people are housed, according to the report.
3. Despite the savings, there are competing ideas for how the city should invest its resources in caring for the homeless, as providing healthcare for that population isn't cheap, even after they enter housing. According to the report, San Francisco's total cost of services — not including housing — was 11 percent higher in 2014-15 compared with 2007-08. The longer people were housed, the more the costs shifted from emergency care to routine primary care.
4. Severin Campbell, a budget and legislative analyst who helped write the report, said the costs went up because "more people were served and they were getting more services," according to the report. "Our takeaway was that overall the city is going to incur costs, but it was a better form of costs, and what people were getting was a better form of care," he said.