Placer County CA homeless people find a house in the suburbs | The Sacramento Bee

Placer County CA homeless people find a house in the suburbs | The Sacramento Bee

"As cities around the country struggle with a growing homeless population and few solutions beyond temporary homeless shelters or single-occupancy hotels, Placer County has been placing some of its homeless population on quiet suburban streets. It’s an attempt to fully integrate formerly homeless people into the community without the extreme costs of building permanent affordable housing...In interviews with The Bee, neighbors also said the existence of the home could threaten their property values, and that erratic behavior, loitering, drinking and smoking in public are unwelcome in their neighborhood.

But for the formerly homeless people who occupy the homes, they’ve found a new sense of comfort without the hassles of living in shelters, on church doorsteps, or the street."

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Thanks to Fred Pilot for this link.  This is a difficult issue for suburbanites, who tend to believe that they have moved away from social issues such as homelessness. But doing it this way is much less expensive than building new housing for the homeless: "The unique arrangement in Placer County contrasts starkly with the extraordinary per-person costs of developing new housing for homeless people in California. At the Capitol Park Hotel downtown, for example, development costs will reach more than $445,000 per unit for apartments that are tiny — about 250 square feet. With the program in Placer County, six people live in each of the four houses — purchased for about $600,000 each — a significantly lower per-person cost than new affordable housing developments."