This summer, the Supreme Court released a decision that will make this problem worse. In its Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling, the court reopened the door for jurisdictions that wish to use criminalization — including measures such as encampment sweeps and increased enforcement of quality-of-life offenses — to address homelessness. Just in the past few months, San Francisco, Seattle and cities across the state of Floridahave implemented or adopted ordinances to enforce sleeping bans, while encampment raids have continued to sweep the country. Not only will this punitive approach fail to address homelessness, research shows that it may have another unintended effect: undermining public safety.
First, the data: Criminalizing homelessness is bad financially and bad for public safety. Homelessness and incarceration have long been linked, as many people shuttle between jails, prisons, emergency rooms and the streets. This cycle occurs at the front end and the back end. Homeless individuals are more likely to contact the criminal/legal system — especially as police enforce low-level “survival” crimes such as trespassing, sleeping in public or loitering — and formerly incarcerated people are nearly 10 times more likely to experience homelessness.
This cycle undercuts safety in multiple ways. The collateral consequences of even short-term jailing — such as loss of employment, separation from families, and fines and fees — increase the likelihood of future arrest while exposing arrested individuals to health risks and unsanitary conditions associated with jails. And policies that divert police to enforce low-level infractions, such as collections of fines and fees, lead tolower clearance rates for violent crime.
Criminalization policies also bear a significant financial cost. The cyclical churn between homelessness, shelter and incarceration is estimated to cost taxpayers $83,000 per individual annually — far more than providing treatment and housing. A study of Seminole County, Fla., found that the annual cost of repeatedly arresting 33 frequently homeless people is roughly $171,225 per person. In New York City, the daily cost for supportive housing is $48 per person, compared to $1,414 for incarceration and $3,609 for hospitalization.
As local officials address homelessness following the Grants Pass case, it’s critical that they pause to consider what does and does not work. Although it’s easy to get homelessness policy wrong, our work suggests that by leveraging care-first crisis response and attention to root causes, lawmakers can address both homelessness and crime in the public realm. And, importantly, there are both short- and long-term ways to do so — meaning cities can invest in longer-term preventive supports like housing while also responding to homelessness through both more immediate and compassionate action.
The good news is that communities nationwide are successfully embracing alternative ways to address mental health and related crises that are often associated with homelessness. These alternative first response programs send social workers, health clinicians, peers and other professionals — not police — to address calls involving mental health and similar crises, “crimes” of poverty. Thus far, results are impressive. In Albuquerque, N.M., for instance, the Community Safety Department diverts over 3,000 calls per month. Durham, N.C.’s, HEART program has taken over 18,000 calls since it was launched two years ago . Portland Street Response in Oregon has also helped yield a 27 percent reduction in traditional police response to non-emergency police calls, while only receiving one call that resulted in an arrest.
Homeless people, given their disproportionate likelihood of police contact, are critical beneficiaries of these programs. By offering care rather than arrests or even deadly force, these models help homeless individuals address underlying needs and secure stable housing, preventing the counterproductive fining and jailing process. Moreover, the programs create a crisis-to-care continuum into supportive housing. In New York, the FUSE initiative, a supportive housing program for people cycling between jails, homeless shelters and emergency rooms led, on average, to95 fewer days in jail for homeless New Yorkers, an 86 percent success rate for stable housing retention after two years, and significant cost savings to taxpayers. Alternative first response can provide a warm handoff to such programs.
Of course, transforming crisis response systems is only one piece of an evidence-based response. Communities must also address the root causes of homelessness. A breadth of research shows that increasing the supply of housing reduces adult homelessness, especially unsheltered homelessness. Communities can also reduce homelessness by ending “one-strike” or “zero-tolerance” policies that unnecessarily contribute to homelessness, especially for vulnerable populations, and instead embrace programs like landlord-tenant mediation, counsel during eviction proceedings and tenant bills of rights that keep tenants from ever becoming homeless.
These policy approaches require thoughtful design and implementation, but the potential dividends are substantial. When Miami spent two decades under a federal ruling that prohibited jail cells and fines as homelessness responses, the county reduced its homelessness rate by 90 percent by funding housing and services. Communities everywhere can follow similar models, embracing cost-effective and humane strategies for addressing homelessness — or they can follow the counterproductive approach of criminalization and punishment. And federal lawmakers can either set these efforts back or provide much-needed financial incentives for positive change.
The safety of our communities may hang in the balance.
Thea Sebastian is executive director at the Futures Institute, Hanna Love is a fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Tahir Duckett is executive director of the Center for Innovations in Community Safety at Georgetown University.
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
