The Housing Fund for Linn County with the Linn County Continuum of Care hosted a Lunch and Learn to study and discuss homelessness in the Cedar Rapids metro area.
The keynote address at the event is the Costs of Homelessness presented by Kasper Kittredge of Willis Dady Homeless Services. The recently composed report highlights the cost of homelessness to the community. From 2013 to 2018 eight participants were tracked in different states of homelessness. That includes at risk, long-term homeless or incarcerated.
The overall cost to Linn County to care for these individuals totaled 1.2 million dollars.
Studies show that affordable housing programs, like the Housing Fund for Linn County and the East Central Iowa Housing Trust Fund, have a big impact on reducing homelessness, helping citizens, and saving communities financial strain.
"The whole idea of today is to be able to show that spectrum and to be able to highlight to what might be done to be able to help the situation." -Tracey Achenbach