Over five years, the homeless men spent more than 15,000 days in jail. Their stays, combined with the cost of their arrests, bookings and ambulance calls, totaled $2.6 million from 2002 to 2006. The majority of arrests were for trespassing, public intoxication and other liquor violations.
Getting the homeless in housing can significantly reduce those costs, the analysis shows. For the eight men who obtained housing during the five-year period reviewed, the cost of bookings and jail time went down 57 percent.
"We don't see incarceration as the answer," Salt Lake Police Chief Chris Burbank said during a news conference at Grace Mary Manor, one of the state's new apartment complexes for the homeless.
Utah is in the midst of a massive push to house its chronic or most frequently homeless population, an effort that has already led to the opening of Grace Mary and Sunrise Metro, a similar facility. A former Holiday Inn in Salt Lake City will reopen next year as a 201-unit building for chronically homeless families and single men and women.
All the buildings follow a "housing first" philosophy, where residents receive help with with addiction, employment and mental health problems after they move in. They pay a portion of their income or benefits for rent.
The projects are part of the state's 10-year plan to eliminate chronic homelessness and reduce homelessness overall by 2014. Utah has an estimated 15,000 people who are homeless at some point each year.
Of that number, about 1,500 to 2,000 are chronically homeless. That number has decreased by 15 percent, which homeless advocates attribute to the success of the "housing first" approach.
For the 39 men in the study, criminal justice costs along with shelter and other services averaged out to $15,142 per individual each year. Housing a resident at Grace Mary and providing support services equals about $11,000 per person. That number is expected to go down over the course of someone's stay.
Salt Lake City Chief Prosecutor Sim Gill recalled how a judge used to max out jail sentences as the seasons changed, providing homeless a place to sleep during winter.
"Our jail and criminal justice system by default have become the social service provider of our community," he said.
Of the 39 men tracked, seven have since died. Premature death is a major issue among the homeless nationwide.
At 57, Madeline Wesson is one of Utah's homeless benefiting from the "housing first" approach. After moving into Grace Mary Manor in South Salt Lake last April, the former data entry clerk is now in a job training program making $6.50 an hour. She came to Grace Mary after spending 17 months living at The Road Home, the downtown homeless shelter.
Wesson had been evicted from her apartment and lost her job. Now she makes herself clam chowder in her own kitchen and reads history books from the Grace Mary library.
"I made some biscuits from here recently," she said. "It's a wonderful joy to have."
jlyon@sltrib.com
