[alienbeast]

Pardon my ignorance, but does "housing-first" come with an expiration date, or is it indefinite? Obviously, if you pay for someone's home, you cure their homelessness, but the goal is to have them pay for their own home eventually, right?

I'd expect something like: You get 1 year of "housing-first"-style free housing with no requirements, then you get 1 year of "tough love" free housing with sobriety and job-search requirements, then you get kicked out.

[mofosyne]

I imagine it depends on the cost differential between the externalities of them being homeless like crime, health and surrounding business impact vs just providing basic housing indefinitely with some resources to get out when ready.

People with complex issues have variable amount of time to resolve it. Can't put a time on it. But you can figure what cost you more and how much you value human dignity within that cost framework.

So an arbitrary time limit in this case does not make sense as a government public welfare policy.