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SALT LAKE CITY -- Last year, more than 14,000 Utahns experienced homelessness. They lived in shelters, with friends or on the streets.
"I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for this program," says Curtis Williams, who was homeless for two years before he moved into Sunrise Metro Apartments in Salt Lake City last May. He knows exactly how tough it can be to have no home.
Overall, homelessness has held steady in recent years as individuals and families tried to endure the recession. But chronic homelessness has been cut nearly 70 percent in the last five years. By definition, the chronically homeless have been homeless an entire year, or four times in three years.
Sunrise Metro Apartments in Salt Lake is among a handful of apartment complexes which are part of the solution. Here's why: it actually costs less to put the chronically homeless into their own apartments than to pay for their community services while they're on the streets.
With their own apartments, Tom Lutz and Curtis Williams see life differently. They took time to shoot a game of pool in the activities room and shar their thought on their home.
"For most of us, it's been a while you had a place you could call home. It's a good feeling," Lutz said.
Lutz kept to himself as he stayed in shelters for a year-and-a half. Williams had a hard time hanging on emotionally.
"I was suicidal. Seriously, I didn't have any will to live anymore," he said. Fortunately, his veteran status enabled him to move in to Sunrise Metro.
Marni Brunstetter is a case manager who works with the residents at Sunrise Metro.
"They each have their own bathroom, they each have their own kitchen, and they each have their own bedroom," Brunstetter said. That's a big deal for people who've lived on the streets or crashed on couches for months on end.
In 2006, state and municipal housing groups adopted a "housing first" approach to solving the problem of homelessness.
The theory is that once the individual has a home, employment and other issues are easier to tackle.
"The main object of this place is to get you started, and eventually move out of here, and get better jobs."
In 2006, the state identified 1,914 chronically homeless people. Now that number is down to 601, a 69 percent reduction.
"In giving people a home and a permanent address, it takes away that crisis survival mode that they're in when they're on the streets," Brunstetter said. "That shift in their thinking, can help shift other people's thinking about how they're viewed in the community, as well."
People who live on the streets year after year use taxpayer resources like shelters, jails, emergency rooms and emergency responses.
State estimates show a chronically homeless person uses $20,000 in services annually, while it cost only $12,000 to put that person in an apartment.
Getting his own home inspired Williams to pen a poem that starts like this.
"Life has a funny way of working things out, even when we're full of doubt. I came in here (and) it's like my new family. I just love every one of them," Williams said
Each resident must qualify for one of three federally funded programs. Ultimately goal is to eliminate chronic homelessness in Utah by 2015. This kind of success shows that it is possible.
