10-Year Homeless Plan To Save You Money

By Josh Simeone J.Simeone@krdo.com

COLORADO SPRINGS – A new plan to help the homeless would end up also helping taxpayers, saving you thousands every year.

It’s a 10-year plan that aims to help the homeless for good, helping them to get a home and a job.

“We start doing the right thing for them and we start saving the community money,” Bob Holmes of Homeward Pikes Peak says.

With about 2,000 homeless people living in Colorado Springs, 400 of them are chronically homeless, which means they live on the streets permanently and won’t get help. Holmes says this group of 400 costs taxpayers thousands in medical bills and police and fire response.

Much of that money comes from Memorial Hospital, where doctors see an average of 30 regular homeless people a minimum of once a week.

“We probably have an average of 10 homeless people a day,” Bonnie Angotti of Memorial Hospital says. Angotti says many of thesehomeless patientsmake return trips to the hospital, sometimes within the same day. Taxpayers pay for the bill.

Holmes says each homeless person costs an average of $54,000 every year. “If you figure the $54-55 thousand, you’re talking 2.2 million range.”

Holmes says the 10-year program would use funds from within his and the city’s budget. He says the cost would be reduced to $15,000 per homeless individual.

“They actually start putting tax dollars back into the economy instead of drawing from the government,” Holmes says.

The program will be presented to Colorado Springs City Council in December. Holmes says it will take time, but it can make the homeless self-sufficient.

Homeless advocates say more than 300 cities nationwide have similar programs that work.