Impacts
Ability Housing’s programs have added positive community impacts through significant cost savings provided to taxpayers, while our efforts to provide affordable housing helps provide an economic impact to blighted neighborhoods.
Homeless:
According to a study by the US Dept. of Health and Human Services Making a Difference: Report of the McKinney Research Demonstration Program for Homeless, documents the effectiveness of supportive housing:
- Positive impacts on health. Decreases of more than 50% in tenants’ emergency room visits and hospital inpatient days; decreases in tenants’ use of emergency detoxification services by more than 80%; and increases in the use of preventive health care services.
- Positive impacts on employment. Increases of 50% in earned income and 40% in the rate of participant employment when employment services are provided in supportive housing, and a significant decrease in dependence on entitlements – a $1,448 decrease per tenant each year.
- Positive impacts on treating mental illness. At least a third of those people living in streets and shelters have a severe and persistent mental illness. Supportive housing has proven to be a popular and effective approach for many mentally ill people, as it affords both independence and as-needed support.
- Positive impacts on reducing or ending substance use. Once people with histories of substance use achieve sobriety, their living situation is often a factor in their ability to stay clean and sober. A one-year follow-up study of 201 graduates of the Eden Programs chemical dependency treatment programs in Minneapolis found that 56.6% of those living independently remained sober; 56.5% of those living in a halfway house remained sober; 57.1% of those living in an unsupported SRO remained sober; while 90% of those living in supportive housing remained sober