Housing First is based on a model that has resulted in cities pouring billions of dollars into an idea. West coast cities, such as San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles have settled on a single solution. Housing First. Since they view homelessness as a "housing problem", then housing must be the solution. The problem is, we've actually put this hypothesis to the test. It's failed.
This hypothesis comes from a man called Sam Tsemberis. Mr. Tsemberis has published a book. A book that has a 3.9 star rating out of 23 reviews. Twenty-three reviews?1?!
Wouldn't you expect that if numerous cities are following the idea of a publisher, and placing billions of dollars of hard-earned taxpayer dollars into a program - that this publisher would have thousands of positive reviews?
See for yourself here.
The Housing First model has failed us. It's just not working as a strategy to reduce homelessness on the west-coast jurisdictions. They've mis-diagnosed the problem, and have formulated the wrong solution. They are missing the two most dominant causes of all - drug abuse and mental disorder. Lack of housing is not the problem.
In other words, Housing First has failed.