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Comment by mrarjen | Hacker News Reader

Yea, I read that most homeless seem to head to CA because it's where the money is...

Here in NL we have some homeless, but also lots of government systems in place to offer housing and incentives to possibly work or get schooling.

In the end this is actually cheaper, as to prevent crime and what not. Not sure how this would work in the US.

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Utah simply housed their homeless and it was cheaper because homeless people were no longer using emergency services for basic healthcare among other things[1]/

1. https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni...

It's only a fraction of the people that are homeless in CA, but a great result none the less. Here is an article of just LA. Seems quite out of control compared with Utah. :(

1. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless-count-2...

About 60 million Americans receive some federal assistance.

A slightly larger number get healthcare from Medicaid.

The assistance is not a large amount per month, but it is there.

Medicaid covers around 80 million people, at roughly $7,000 a year per recipient, which is double what the UK spends per patient.

https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/distribution-of...

The breakdown of the per recipient spending is useful:

https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/medicaid-spendi...

Much of the spending is on the elderly and disabled (which both group tend to have above average medical needs).

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