Society’s approach to homeless people with chronic health problems such as addiction has traditionally been governed by tough love: stay in treatment, or you don’t get publicly supported housing. The homeless are expected to graduate from shelters, to transitional housing and then to their own apartments. But that has proved punitively moralistic for the chronically homeless who spend years cycling through shelters, jails and emergency rooms – at great cost to taxpayers

Today, states are rethinking the short-term shelter model and moving from a strategy of managing homelessness, to ending it. In 2004, Utah embraced this nationwide movement and new strategy, which we’ve dubbed HousingWorks. Under the HousingWorks model, chronically homeless citizens go immediately from the streets, or homeless shelters, into their own apartments. The model also provides job training and other supports to help tenants re-integrate with society. The housing is permanent and "affordable," meaning that tenants pay 30 percent of their income towards rent.

Guiding Utah is a "10-year action plan" developed by Utah’s Homeless Coordinating Committee:

• End chronic homelessness by moving people off the streets and into permanent, supported housing
• Expand access to affordable housing and reduce overall homelessness by 40 percent
• Prevent homelessness by easing people’s transition from domestic violence shelters, jails, prisons, mental health institutions and foster care
• Create a statewide database to chart outcomes and drive change

Taking their cue from this blueprint, local committees in 12 regions throughout the state have developed their own HousingWorks plans, tailored to their unique demographics and social needs. Many have launched locally-grown experiments, which are already paying dividends. This centrally-lead, locally developed approach brings coordination without imposing mandates from the top down.