thehiddencostsofhomelessnessinnashvilleareportonthe.docVIP

Vanderbilt University Center for Community Studies Douglas D. Perkins, Ph.D., Director Email: d.perkins@ Peabody College, Box 90 /ccs/ Nashville, TN 37203-5701 Voice: (615) 322-3386 The Hidden Costs of Homelessness in Nashville: A Report to the Nashville Metro Homelessness Commission By Courte C.W. Voorhees, Scott R. Brown Douglas D. Perkins EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The costs of homelessness, in terms of services and systems of care, must be understood to better inform policy-making. Currently those costs are generally unknown because they are spread across many public and private agencies that do not readily share cost and budget information or do not separate costs for serving the homeless population; some may be difficult to quantify; mostly costs of homelessness are elusive because people experiencing homelessness themselves tend to be “hidden.” Also, the methods and resources to track, analyze and report costs have not been standardized or made transparent and regularly reported. This study aims to shed light on the economics of homelessness in Nashville. We draw on, and where possible try to improve upon, the data sources and analytic approaches of similar studies in other cities across the U.S. In addition, for comparative purposes, we estimated the costs of providing permanent housing for homeless persons, both including and not including supportive services, and the differences in expenditure for all options to provide a cost-efficiency analysis. Methods. Six trained Vanderbilt students conducted interviews with homeless people, service providers, and outreach workers throughout Nashville. Archival data were also used to construct costs directly and to estimate unavailable figures. Homeless participants were only excluded from the study if they were under 18 years old, were unable to understand the consent form, or did not speak English. Once the initial convenience sample was gathered, an effort was made to make the final sample (n = 105) as