CambridgeToday received the following letter from a reader regarding the costs of affordable housing.
Ignoring homelessness costs our community more than we realize.
Spending on emergency shelters, healthcare, and police services to address homelessness often exceeds what it would cost to invest in affordable housing and supportive solutions.
In other words, an initiative-taking approach is more effective but also saves money!
Cambridge urgently needs an outdoor shelter for safe, temporary housing, providing immediate relief to those currently unhoused. To make this happen, we need the combined political will of the City of Cambridge and the Region of Waterloo to ensure no one has to sleep outside without safety.
Cambridge also urgently needs Indwell ‘affordable housing with supports’, to be provided at the old Grand River Hotel in Preston. Ready to be built, this Indwell project is now stalled due to a lack of government funding. Beyond this, Cambridge needs more Indwell locations to meet our community’s growing need for supportive housing options.
Research shows homelessness is strongly linked to high healthcare costs, which are often underestimated in policy discussions. A study published in BMC Health Services Research recently examined healthcare expenses for unhoused individuals in Toronto, finding they incurred an average of $12,209 annually in public healthcare costs. This is compared to $1,769 for housed people.
Investing in affordable housing is not just the right thing to do; it is financially smart.
Anne Tinker
Citizens for Cambridge
