Corporate Governance

A Sunday Editorial: Social Responsibility and Homelessness

By J. Robert Brown

Social responsibility can be good for the bottom line but it isn't something that is always intuitively obvious to those seeking to maximize profits.  Sometimes corporate America needs to think outside the box, whether because of the thought process of a visionary CEO (take Chipotle as an example) or because it was pushed by government regulation (take the Community Reinvestment Act). 

The phenomena is not, however, limited to the profit making environment.  The WSJ recently reported on the "housing first" approach to solving homelessness.  The approach involves the housing of the long term homeless as a first step.  Once housed, they are visited by case workers and offered (but not forced to accept) medical and other care. 

Housing first is often criticized as a handout.  But in fact mental illness is a chronic condition among the long term homeless.  Sleeping on streets and struggling for a daily existence are not a conducive method of encouraging treatment.  The long term homeless put great demand on public facilities, whether the emergency rooms, the detox centers, or the prisons. 

Housing first, therefore, reduces demand on other services.  In short, it saves money.  So says a recent study.  According to the WSJ:

• The study, called the Chicago Housing for Health Partnership, or CHHP, is among the first to use a scientific approach in a housing study of homeless people with problems other than mental illness, according to Dennis Culhane, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and leading researcher in the field who has followed the study's progress.  One group of homeless people that received housing and intensive follow-up by a case manager consumed fewer public resources than a separate group that received "usual care" -- the piecemeal system of emergency shelters, family and recovery programs -- according to a preliminary review of data by the researchers.

It may be "among" the first "scientific" studies but this phenomena is widely known in the community of service providers for the homeless.  Housing first is a programprogram in place in Denver and administered by theColorado Coalition for the Homeless, a non-profit where I sit on the board. 

Housing first treats the long term homeless with dignity and gives them a chance to leave a violent environment.  It also saves money.  In other words, as we have noted in the context of the corporate environment, doing the socially responsible thing can be very cost effective. 

Full post as published by The Race to the Bottom on March 09, 2008 (boomark / email).