For Alcoholics, ‘Wet Houses' Offer a Home

Los Angeles County’s Homeless Outreach & Mobile Engagement (HOME) program uses street psychiatry to get psychiatric medication to people experiencing homelessness in an effort to get them a step closer to housing. The HOME team has 223 full-time staff members and served 1,919 people last year, 22% of whom ended the year housed.

Harvest Farm is an experiential recovery program that helps men experiencing homelessness and struggling with substance abuse achieve sobriety and become self-sufficient with stable work and housing. The program is free and a minimum of 6 months. The men toil on the farm and have access to case managers, addiction support groups, life and career development classes, and counseling. In the last phase of treatment, many hold jobs off of the farm, which provides added support through the post-graduation transition. A year after graduating, 70% of participants maintain housing and sobriety.

Temporary housing providing drug treatment and other services to people experiencing homelessness appears to cut the chances that people arrested in Portland on minor charges will cycle repeatedly through the criminal justice system. In 2019, 250 people living in transitional housing were booked into jail, versus nearly 3,700 people still living on the streets. The rearrest rate for people living on the street is 87%, but 30 points lower for people with housing. Portland officials have been slow to provide alternatives to arrests and jail since a report in 2017 that most arrestees in Portland are homeless.

An emergency shelter, a housing nonprofit, the City of Boise, and the Boise Police Department came together to coordinate efforts and give assistance to the growing number of residents experiencing homelessness and living in RVs and cars around the city. The “Street Outreach Support” program involves knocking on the vehicle doors and offering temporary housing and medical attention to those who need it. While there are a smattering of reasons that people are living in their vehicles, the city is searching for a more permanent solution to getting people access to affordable housing.

Dann’s House provides housing to homeless alcoholics. While it might seem counterintuitive, residents are allowed to drink on the promises. Evidence shows wet housing leads to a decrease in drinking. “What you’ll find in this harm-reduction environment is that, eventually, spontaneous consumption goes down and health goes up.”

The VA has shifted its approach to ending homelessness among veterans. Now, a place to live--more than drug treatment or mental health counseling--is considered the starting point for helping a soldier who is struggling to cope with life after discharge.

Solider On is an organization that serves homeless veterans in 18 counties across central New York. Of their 180 employees, 92 used to be homeless themselves and another 15 are veterans. They travel everywhere to find people who need help and then work with them to get anything they need, such as housing or employment. Some participants testify to how much the program has changed their lives.

Formerly a motel, Karluk Manor is Alaska’s original Housing First facility, a new approach to solving homelessness that focuses first and foremost on providing housing to people in need, and then later addressing problems such as health concerns and economic dependence.

In San Francisco, 23 percent of homeless people return to the street after transitional housing programs. A New York program gives the mentally ill and homeless individual apartments alongside average New Yorkers and has had an 84 percent retention rate.

With New Path Community Housing, Boise is one more city implementing Housing First policies to help reduce rates of homelessness. The apartment complex also includes onsite services and healthcare providers to help people transition into permanent housing.