An article in today’s NY Times about a new approach to homelessness. Building on the “housing first” initiative that begin in the 1990s, it views homelessness more as a public health crisis than as a nuisance. Homeless people have access to emergency rooms; they do not have access to ongoing care. And this is expensive. In LA, 4800 chronically homeless people (10% of LA’s total homeless population) consume a half-billion dollars worth of services each year.

These are shocking statistics:

Another thing that Common Ground discovered was that the homeless were an amalgam of many subgroups. They have now surveyed almost 14,000 chronically homeless people and found that roughly 20 percent are veterans, 10 percent are over the age of 60, 4 percent have H.I.V. or AIDS, 47 percent have a mental illness and 5 percent remain homeless because they can’t find housing with their pets.

For more on the 100,000 homes project, go here.