First some history.

When President George W Bush took office for the first time, he inherited a balanced budget.  So being the dedicated Republican that his is, he immediately gave tax cuts to the wealthy and started slashing the budget.  One of the things he cut was the funding for HUD.  Cities across the nation already had year long waiting lists for Section 8 housing vouchers. And with the advent of W, suddenly the housing situation for the poor went from bad to worse.  At that point most cities just stopped using waiting lists, not seeing the point of giving people false hope that in 2 or 3 years the "might" get housing.

Then one day George W Bush made a statement that he believed the United States, being the great nation that it is, should be able to end chronic homelessness in ten years time.  HUD then announced that if cities developed ten year plans to end chronic homelessness that they might qualify to get their Section 8 vouchers back.

This is how it was all explained to me a few years ago when I was appointed to the mayor's task force on homelessness, with goal of developing Nashville's 10 year plan.

Accompanying us in developing our 10 year plan was a tome of a book, outlining the "best practices" developed to end homelessness by cities with proven track records of successfully dealing with homelessness.  The latest revised version of this book can be found at http://www.hhs.gov/homeless/research/endhomelessness.html

This book outlines the strategy recommended by the Government on how best to end chronic homelessness.  Among the recommendation in this book is the emphasis on the financial benefits to cities that implement the 10 year plan. 

In short the 10 year plan involves developing a housing first model with wraparound services for the homeless.  That way the homeless are gotten off the streets as quickly as possible and given the services needed to help them overcome the problems that lead to their homelessness.

The cost-benefit analysis is one of many steps required of cities to get its homeless people off the streets, and as importantly, getting its Section 8 funding back from the federal government.

As far as making a plea to the world that housing is a right, and I do believe that is true, that plea falls on deaf ears, especially on those with the purse strings.   As right as it may be, morally and ethically, to get homeless people off the streets, and give them proper housing,  the great obstacle is a financial one.  And those holding the money that could making housing the homeless possible want to hear something other than what they would determine to be "moral platitudes."  Everything is about business for the people with money, and so they must be shown in financial terms a good reason for giving their money to such a project as housing the homeless.

For a great deal of information about the "strategic framework for ending homelessness" go to http://www.usich.gov/library/index.html

I should add that the federal government offers to help fund 10 year plans, if the the cities involved can generate "community buy-in."   Community buy-in means that local institutions, finanacial mostly commit to paying for some of the implimentation of their city's 10 year plan.

So you mean to tell me that for sixty years now we as a nation have been fighting to bring an understanding to the consideration of affordable housing practice?

The cost benefit technique was the cornerstone of the Bush-era homelessness czar Phil Mangano. Meanwhile, he and HUD bamboozled Congress and Americans on the issue of homelessness. 10-year-plans and the Continuum of Care bureaucracies, with exceptions in a few communities, kept everyone fiddling while Rome burned.

We've been dabbling at this issue for decades, and it just gets worse. To Kevin's reference about the length of this dilemma, I'd offer this link: http://www.wraphome.org/downloads/without_housing.pdf which outlines the past 25+ years of drastic housing cuts.

Homeless people--single adults, families, teens on their own--are typically scorned. Punative policies and practices make their lives even more difficult.

Enlightened people will realize that we are all in the same boat--and it's sinking. We need to bail. And uniting to call for a radical change to housing and poverty policies would be the place to start, not another cost benefit analysis.

Each Government division makes up their own definitions as near as I have noticed. At one time HUD allowed people just given 30 days eviction notice to be considered "Homeless". That makes sense for purposes of prevention especially. But they "changed"the definition . Schools have a different definition of homelessness for their students which would make our Homeless numbers even larger than PiT figures indicate. So asking just what Affordable Housing means is an excellent question. AND DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ASK.
The conceptual definition I have learned is that a Family unit making $100.00 per month should not have to spend more than 30% or $30 for Housing Expenses. Mortgage qualifying is similar with PITI amounts maxxed out and long term debts limited to a lesser figure that goes to a grand total of obligations they are allowed to have and still be expected to pay the payment.

This 30% is regardless of how much you make or what the lowest rents are versus lowest safe housing rents if that determination exists or not. So a person/Family unit making $1350 per month should be housed safely and adequately for 3x$135 = $405.00.  So you see how a $900 rental would be somehow subsidised $495 per month. (utilities included).

So a family of 8 making $120,000.00 per year in Fairfax Co.
might still qualify for affordable housing consideration is how the definition can get real confusing real quick. So it's as much a Human Rights broad brush definition as it is something practical once a concensus creates agreement.

Then it's also easier to help 2 families with $250 each as it is to help 1 at the Minimum wage lowend. And we shall not forget the SSI/SSDI recipient getting only $650 per month.

Their Affordable Housing Payment would be $217.00 per month.  Leaving the Government to pick up the $783 difference. When compared to just 1 day of extra Hospitalization at the 2004 9 city report rate of $2,184.00.

The 4 days extra stay national average covers the Years rent in a Seattle slum?

In 2004, Nashville had the Mayor's Task Force On Homelessness.  I was a part of the task force.  But after a while, I became frustrated with it and withdrew from it.  Still the task force created the Nashville Homelessness Commission which started the very next year.  Again, I was appointed to this Commission, yet within less than a year I withdrew from the Commission, frustrated with it's lack of focus, and inability to move forward.

So, this Commission, which has been in existence since 2005, has only now begun officially asking the city for "community buy-in."

The thing that pissed me off the first time was that President W said we should end chronic homelessness in ten years, but Nashville took that to mean it should take tens years to come up with a plan to end chronic homelessness.  So, the task force developed a ten year time line for creating it's program.  And still, this commission cannot keep to that timeline.   To say it's been dragging its feet is a serious undestatement.

Yes, Nashville has placed some chronically homeless people into housing, but it did so in a very haphazard fashion.  It is not exactly using a Housing First model. And as far as I know it is doing so without any community buy-in.

Yes, most cities have done a poor job of implementing their 10 year plans.   I'm thinking that perhaps, with a new Democrat as President, cities are under the assumption that they'll get all their Section 8 vouchers back, and so won't have to bother anymore with the homeless.

And as critical as I am about Nashville's lack of progress, I must confess that I am benefiting.  I have been in housing for a year and a half now because of the Homelessness Commission.  Still, I don't do all this advocacy work for myself only.

The homeless are people. They are people without funds, who cannot pay rent. Shannon great job When 10 year plans take 10 years to create and then 10 years to implement they are 20 years plans.

HOUSE ALL IN NEED. This 10 year plans calls for an increment to be housed. I and many in the know says house ALL, pay the 97 year old and the 30 year old, enough to cover rent and other unavoidable human costs.

Think you are spot on with what people thinks, added with their fear of becoming people of poverty.  The poor and the lower middle classes are like two dogs bickering over the same bone. While the rich get another $70,000 bonus, and guard their piles of bones.

Human change is not glacier. An alcoholic does not decide to stop drinking in the next 3 decades, they stop when they decide they have a problem. You do not treat cancer in a decade of diagnose, if the person is still lingering around.

Poverty is like a 2,000 year old disease. It needs to end by 2012.   

Here in Maine we changed behavior on smoking within a decade. We out lawed smoking in public buildings and increased price of cigarette and Tobacco.

USE INTERNENT, TO END POVERTY, on December 10 2009. Look up Poverty on Yahoo and Google  MAKE "POVERTY"  # 1 for Numbers of searches