Business support for Heading Home urged

Initiative helps homeless get off streets, connect with services

The head of the Albuquerque Heading Home initiative says it should be supported by donations from the business community because in the long run it saves taxpayer dollars that can be used elsewhere for the benefit of the city.

Dennis Plummer, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Heading Home, the umbrella organization overseeing Albuquerque Heading Home and other programs, told a breakfast meeting of the Economic Forum of Albuquerque on Wednesday that $3 million has been saved since 2011 by housing the most medically fragile and chronically homeless.

Plummer pointed to a 2013 study conducted by the University of New Mexico’s Institute of Social Research that showed it was 31 percent cheaper to house people than to allow them to remain on the streets. Housing them also decreased their hospital visits by 36 percent; their inpatient costs by nearly 84 percent; and their medical outpatient costs by 39 percent. It also decreased the cost that would have been involved with jailing them by 64 percent.

Once a person or family from the target group is identified, Plummer said, they are fast-tracked to get a home.

“That’s contrary to what we used to think, that you need to become housing ready and earn that housing,” he said. By getting people into housing first, they get assigned a case manager who plugs them into social services, including those that address the reasons they became homeless in the first place — alcohol or drug abuse, or untreated medical conditions and mental health and behavioral issues.

Among those housed, Plummer said, there has been a 486 percent increase in the use of social services.

“It has an amazing ripple effect,” Plummer said. “Once housed we can integrate them back into the community.”

Many formerly homeless people eventually go back to work or school. When they become independent and no longer need housing support from Albuquerque Heading Home, the housing vouchers can be used to help another person or family, Plummer said.

The cost to house a person ranges from $10,000 to $12,000 a year, depending on the size of the family. By comparison, vouchers for a motel, at an average cost of $45 a night, would cost $16,425 a year.

Two unidentified forum members on Wednesday each pledged to cover the cost to house a homeless person or family for a year.

“It’s a remarkable show of how the community is getting behind the initiative,” Plummer said.

The Economic Forum of Albuquerque is a nonpartisan business leaders group dedicated to improving the local community by improving the quality of jobs, education and government.