Homelessness in Huntsville: No, it’s not mental health
December 13, 2023
This week we cover some facts about Huntsville’s unhoused population and trends. And we discuss the actual cause of homelessness.
Housing for Huntsvillians | Episode 19
About This Episode
This week we cover some facts about Huntsville’s unhoused population and trends. And we discuss the actual cause of homelessness. Huntsville is home to an estimated 600 unhoused people. (This is almost certainly a massive undercount.) And this number is […]
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This week we cover some facts about Huntsville’s unhoused population and trends. And we discuss the actual cause of homelessness.
Huntsville is home to an estimated 600 unhoused people. (This is almost certainly a massive undercount.)
And this number is rising.
Between Aug 2022-Aug 2023 affordable housing was the #1 request to the United Way 211 line, comprising 26% of calls. 64% of those callers were on the verge of homelessness when they called/
Cost of homelessness
Between various grants to nonprofits and the HHA budget, the City of Huntsville spends at least $1m/year fighting homelessness.
But that estimate doesn’t come close to the total cost of homelessness to taxpayers.
Various studies estimate that chronic homelessness costs taxpayers somewhere between $30,000 and $100,000 per person, per year.
But even that is an underestimate, because the costs are so diffuse that they’re impossible to accurately quantify.
These costs include, but are not limited to:
- Earlier death
