Housing First

“A lot of the housing first groups tout that, hey, you know, 80% of people stay in these units over two years, and to my mind, that seems like a disaster. If I give someone a free apartment and 20% leave for the streets after two years, I have failed miserably.”

“And yeah, San Francisco, Arizona, these other states and cities, they built enough homes for every single unsheltered homeless person in the street. 1015 years later, they have more homeless people in the streets.”

“You know, as I often cite, the National Academy of Science said, there's no evidence that these housing first units improve the health of the homeless.”

“When you tell average Americans about this, we do the polls, do you think, ah, you know, basically free homes should be given out with no sobriety or mental health treatments to people on the street? Overwhelming. 70, 80% of people say, of course not. Again, a…”

“They passed a law in 2016, the only state in America to do it implementing in legislation this approach called Housing First. Which says that you've got to, the number one thing is, and it sounds like a sensible thing, of course, give homeless people housing, …”