10:07 AM EST on Thursday, December 30, 2004

DRIVE PAST the Welcome Arnold Shelter, in Cranston's Pastore Complex, in the late afternoon, and observe 100 or more of our fellow humans waiting in line, hoping for a bed for the night.

For most of them, seeking shelter is a traumatic yet temporary crisis, which they resolve when they save enough of their pay to get back into housing. In other cases, the same people have been waiting in line at shelters for years: They cannot afford a home.

Many people in Rhode Island do not realize that we have no welfare for single adults without a diagnosed disability.

Last year, we sheltered over 1,000 adults who had no income, and even more whose income was under $10,000 -- far less than required for the most minimal living situation. Lack of income was due to barriers to employment, including untreated mental illness, substance abuse and lack of job skills.

There is a solution for those who have experienced long-term homelessness: permanent supportive housing. This is housing with individualized health, support and employment services, tailored to help each resident live as independently as possible. Housing can be in scattered sites within communities or a group of units within an apartment complex. The housing should be near jobs and shopping, transportation and other necessary services.

It is permanent -- continuing as long as the tenant complies with the terms of the lease.

Housing and services can address homelessness at its root causes. Results are remarkable. Once in supportive housing, people who have lived on the street for years are leading more stable lives. Two-thirds of the tenants in a Connecticut supportive-housing study reported being employed or in education and training programs. People look and feel better, reunite with their families, and reduce or eliminate their substance abuse. They are no longer on the streets of our cities, sleeping in parks and under bridges. Those who have "taxed" the system are now "contributing" to the system.

Permanent supportive housing is already working very effectively in Rhode Island. Through the federal McKinney Homeless Assistance Program and our state-funded Neighborhood Opportunities Supportive Housing Program, we have created several hundred units of supportive housing in the last five years. This housing exists in every area of the state.

The Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation has transformed Woonsocket's Constitution Hill with supportive housing blending in with family rentals and home ownership. Permanent supportive housing exists in the East Bay, Johnston, Kent County and South County -- in fact, in most of the cities and towns in the state. While we cannot reach all of the people who need this housing, we have transformed the lives of those who are now in it.

If we expanded the Neighborhood Opportunities Supportive Housing Program, we could meet the need for at least 600 additional units of supportive housing in the next 10 years. At a cost of about $3 million a year, there would undoubtedly be cost savings and better outcomes.

The program could help cities and towns create housing for residents with disabilities who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. It is essential that municipalities include supportive housing among their options as they develop plans mandated by the Low- and Moderate-Income Housing Act, of 2004. Creating supportive housing through new construction or rehabilitation of dilapidated property improves the neighborhood.

In Connecticut, a comprehensive multi-year evaluation of 281 supportive apartments demonstrated that neighborhood property values increased by more than 30 percent.

The creation of supportive housing improves the community in many ways, including providing stable neighbors, more attractive and better-maintained homes, increases in the property- and income-tax base, and better quality of life for all. No one benefits from having homeless people on the streets and families in emergency shelters.

Along with the housing, services are essential. Solid data indicate that for what we are spending on keeping people homeless, we could have them in housing. For example, people in housing become healthier, saving on the costs of Medicaid and uncompensated hospital care. A Connecticut independent evaluation of state permanent supportive-housing programs showed that from 1999 to 2002, the cost of Medicaid-funded inpatient health care and behavioral-health care provided to tenants dropped 71 percent.

Those on the streets with behavioral-health problems may often end up incarcerated -- at great cost to the state. Families are separated because of homelessness; children are in foster care. Each winter, we must use funds from the state budget to open shelters to keep people from freezing to death.

All of these costs to the state of Rhode Island exceed the cost of housing an individual or family. Essentially, we can either waste money keeping people homeless, or we can fund long-term solutions!

The effects of permanent housing are being recognized nationally. Philadelphia is the first big city to largely end its chronic homeless problem, having gone from 4,500 on the streets less than 10 years ago to only 130 now; the city did this by creating housing with services. New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., are emphasizing "housing first," reallocating resources from shelter to housing; they are transforming shelters into very temporary housing, and are also emphasizing the prevention of homelessness-- a crucial area that has not been addressed in Rhode Island.

Rhode Island can and must do more. State investment in housing and services would benefit the entire community. We must not accept people living for years without housing. We need the political will and the community support to end long-term homelessness.

Michelle Malloy is associate director of the Rhode Island program of the Corporation for Supportive Housing. Noreen Shawcross is executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless.