The Huffington Post (3/7, Couch) reports that a study published March 3 in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that “providing homeless people with housing first and foremost is vital in getting them off the streets for good.” The two-year study involved “nearly 1,200 homeless individuals” with a mental illness who lived in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg, Canada. Researchers followed “two groups of homeless people with mental illness – one (the ‘intervention’ group) was given rent supplements to access stable housing, as well as provided with case management services, while the other (or ‘usual care’ group) only had access to existing housing and support services in their communities.)” People in the intervention group ended up staying in stable housing some 73.2 percent of the time, whereas those getting usual care stayed in stable housing only 23.6 percent of the time, the study found.
Related Links:
— “This Critical Step Could Keep Homeless People With Mental Illness Off The Streets,” Robbie Couch
, Huffington Post, March 6, 2015.