Denver homeless program struggles to reduce death rates

DENVER (AP) — When people who had been homeless for years moved off the Denver streets and into apartments, they were far less likely to end up in hospital emergency rooms or get locked up in jail.

But they still died at the same rate as those who lived outside.

That’s the grim finding from a new study of Denver’s social impact bond program, which sends outreach workers to find the highest users of taxpayer-funded services including hospitals, detox centers and the jail. Hundreds of people who were chronically homeless have been housed through the program, which began seven years ago.

Previous research showed that the first 250 participants had cost the government a total of $7.3 million per year when they lived outside and in shelters and cycled through the health care and criminal justice systems. After they were housed, researchers found a 40% reduction in arrests, a 30% reduction in jail stays, a 65% decrease in detox services and a 40% drop in emergency department visits.

The reductions made up for half of the cost of the program, which was started with $8.6 million from eight private investors as well as local housing resources.

But as those researchers, from the Urban Institute based in Washington, D.C., worked on the previous study, they noticed high levels of mortality among those who were living in supportive housing, which comes not only with rent assistance but also mental health and addiction treatment.

A second study confirmed it: the death rate among those in apartments was the same as those living outside.

The institute looked at mortality data for 532 people who had moved into supportive housing from 2016-19, then compared that to 529 people who were homeless and receiving community services through nonprofit and governmental organizations.

About 10%...