First, there was a shocking report last spring revealing that homelessness in Santa Clara County cost in excess of a billion dollars every two years. Now, the same firm that calculated those staggering figures has developed a computer model that will identify the most desperate and costly homeless individuals and prescribe cost-saving fixes -- including immediate housing.
And because the algorithm, introduced today by a local support group for the homeless, can be employed by any municipality, there are high expectations that counties around the Bay Area and the nation will use Silicon Valley's "triage tool" to save money while dramatically increasing services to the most troublesome longtime homeless cases everywhere.
"This allows us to focus on those who need the services the most," said Louis Chicoine, executive director of Abode Services, an agency that provides supportive housing for the homeless. "The people who will get housing are the ones least able to compete in the housing market in the first place. This tool turns all that upside down, and we get to focus our efforts on those with the greatest needs."
In 2015 a Los Angeles firm -- the Economic Roundtable -- produced a report for a San Jose agency -- Destination: Home, a program of The Health Trust. The document, "Home Not Found: The Cost of Homelessness in Silicon Valley" was the most comprehensive look at homelessness ever done anywhere. It calculated the county had roughly 7,600 homeless people -- seventh in the nation -- and that included the infamous "Jungle" creek encampment, where 300 people lived in abject squalor, surrounded by stunning regional wealth. The $200,000 report also revealed that the annual cost of homelessness in the county was $520 million.
Now, that study has been used to develop the Silicon Valley triage tool, called "the most accurate screening software that has ever been developed" to predict future costs of individuals whose lives and struggles change dramatically from one year to the next.
To continue reading this article by David E. Early, go to: http://www.mercurynews.com/bay...diest-homeless-cases
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