Housing the Houseless

Jeremy Hobson for WBUR interviewing Martha Kegel (executive director of a non-profit) on how New Orleans reduced their number of houseless people by 90%:

And lastly, she says, the team took a “Housing First” approach, which is “simply the idea that you accept people as they are,” whether they are sober or not.

“You just accept them as they are and you provide the housing first,” Kegel says. “Then, once they’re in their apartment, you immediately wrap all the services around them that they need to stay stable and live the highest quality life that they can live.”

This article is tough to read, even with the positive news, but there are some really important basic fact checks in here for people who aren’t convinced that housing people is the first solution to houselessness. In relating an anecdote about someone who turned down help, Kegel says: “…which isn’t actually the typical thing, most homeless people want to be housed.”