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Homeless people with severe alcohol problems use publicly funded healthcare and criminal justice system resources at high rates and incur prodigious costs. To assess the effects of a supportive housing intervention (Housing First) in Seattle, researchers compared use of publicly funded resources for 95 people who were provided with housing and 39 people who were on a waiting list for housing between November 2005 and March 2007. Participants in the two groups did not differ significantly in mean age at enrollment (48) or mean age at which they first became homeless (31).
The researchers calculated total costs associated with use of shelters and sobering centers, hospital-based medical services, publicly funded alcohol and drug detoxification…