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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

The "less money" part is not so obvious. The article does not go in details about that part, so it's very hard to say whether it's BS or not. A house needs frequent maintenance, renovation, cleaning, etc... and this costs a lot of money in the mid-long run, as facilities degrade.

As for the ideology itself, I wonder how people who are working just to get enough money to survive and rent a place feel about this. I would be fine with the idea that a homeless person gets a home for a while, as long as they actively sort their life out and find a way to get to work again in a reasonable timeframe. Unless they are mentally ill, of course.

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It's true that it costs some money to maintain this kind of thing, but it costs a lot of money to maintain the current solutions, so the bar to beat is not exactly low. The current solutions for housing long-term homeless include, in varying proportions, such expensive facilities as: jail cells, hospital rooms, 72-hour holds in psychiatric facilities, and homeless shelters. My own guess is that Americans don't actually care about the cost, but are extremely paranoid that someone is getting something they feel they don't deserve. If someone is locked up in a prison cell for 5x the cost of renting them an apartment, then that's fine, because at least you know they were "punished" for spending the taxpayers' money, not getting something subjectively nice.

You could probably negate resentment from the working poor/other people working hard just to survive by making the facilities kind of basic, but available to everyone. People who want something prettier, in a better location, or with more amenities can pay for that experience. People in desperate situations will likely take whatever they can get.

I'm under the impression that the program is aimed at the chronically homeless, who tend to be disabled and or mentally ill. Also, after reading more about the program here http://jobs.utah.gov/housing/scso/hprrh/ it seems that when possible the program is focused on reentry into the workforce. The state claims that its successful and saves money, and its not like the place is run by Bernie Sanders.

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