8 ms·

> Over 10 years the government will save $1.32 for every $1 invested for fuller support for the chronically homeless, Sacred Heart Mission estimates 32% return

• duckingtest 11y ago
  That's an estimated 2.8% annually for a high-risk investment. It doesn't really make financial sense.
  • duskwuff 11y ago
    I'm not sure how you're coming up with "2.8% annually". This is an ongoing effort, not a one-time investment; the local government is spending money every year, and each year they estimate they're saving $1.32 for every dollar they spend.
    • murbard2 11y ago
      1.32^(1/10)-1
• gwern 11y ago
  The return declines each year. See the section of the paper where they discuss how the two groups converge in outcomes as time passes. (This is complicated by the high attrition in the control group: they lost track of a third to a half of the control group and so couldn't do an intent-to-treat analysis; they argue that the bias from this heavy attrition is probably in the direction of understating the benefits since it was mostly the ones who were worst-off at baseline who disappeared, but of course there's no way to be sure and one could easily argue the opposite.)