Homeless Housing Calculator

Housing Cost Calculator Definitions

Site

A site refers to a single housing location with either an apartment building, tiny housing village, or tent encampment. Each site consists of units. Think of this like an apartment complex, consisting of many apartment units.

Unit

A single living unit within the entire site. Think of this like a single apartment within an entire apartment complex.

# Of Units per Site

This includes the complete total of all units within any given site, including manager units, and units not sanctioned for the homeless.

Avg. # of People per Unit

Most units will have multiple people living within them. This number refers to the average number of people living with each unit of the entire site. For example, if a site has 10 units with one person living in each unit and 10 more units with two people living in each unit, the average number of people per unit is 1.5.

Total Residents on Site

This includes homeless residents, and if applicable, managers on site, and low-income (non-homeless) residents.

Cost to Build Each Unit

The unit cost is the result of dividing the entire project cost by the number of all livable units. The entire project costs include adding parking lots, manager units, offices, community centers, and everything else on-site. Although many cities will use city-owned land as part of the project, it’s important to add in the value of the land to get the true cost of the overall project cost.

Annual Cost to Run per Person

This is a tricky number to calculate, as most projects only include the cost to manage the on-site resources, such as site management, cleaning crews, etc. Annual run costs typically do not add costs for case managers and the infrastructure behind social workers; welfare costs; health care and emergency room cost; emergency personnel such as law enforcement and Fire & Rescue; and much more. It’s important to understand that a city-sanctioned tent encampment doesn’t reduce many of the daily costs associated with homelessness because many of these residents will still roam the city streets during the daytime and use other city resources. However, some research studies have indicated that the best type of housing for the homeless, along with supportive services, can reduce costs to manage the homeless by 50% compared to living on the streets.

% Of Units for Homeless

Many new apartment buildings that claim to be built for the homeless usually are never 100% for the homeless. Many apartment buildings require on-site managers, and typically have a portion of units set aside for low-income residents, yet will still be claimed to be built for the homeless.

Acres per Site

The total number of acres for building structures, management offices, parking lots, dog areas, community areas – everything that is required for the site.

Staff On-Site

This includes on-site management, maintenance crews, on-site counselors, office staff, etc. This does not include the visiting or infrastructure personnel, such as case managers and the infrastructure behind social workers; welfare personnel; health care and emergency room personnel; first responder personnel such as law enforcement and EMT; and much more.

Unsheltered Homeless in Region

The region is the vicinity that is being discussed. For example, Sacramento, CA has 9,278 homeless people. That is a quote that gets repeated over and over. However, the CITY of Sacramento does not have that many homeless. The number is in regards to the REGION, which includes many cities and towns nearby. Many homeless people travel through a region, so that’s why it’s important to understand and work with the region.

In addition, not all homeless are living on the streets. People can still be considered homeless even if they are considered “housed”. So when calculating how much housing is needed to house the homeless, we need to understand how many homeless people are unsheltered. It’s also important to note that many of the housing programs and shelters that help the homeless off the streets are not considered long-term housing solutions.

Unsheltered Homeless in America

This is the subset of the total homeless count in America. Currently, America has over 568k homeless people (based on the 2019 counts; 2022 total will arrive in late 2022), and approximately 211k of that number are people living on the streets and counted as “unsheltered.”

Citizens Again Population

The Citizens Again solution is designed for triple occupancy per unit, which equates to a maximum of 150,000 population for the City. If using double occupancy per unit, that would be a 100,000 population; and single occupancy would have a 50,000 population.

Citizens Again Cost to Build

Estimates are calculated by a variety of methods: using comparables of previous projects (a.k.a. analogous estimates), using various online resources to obtain historical cost data (a.k.a. parametric estimates), and in some cases, compiling data from various sources to create an educated guesstimate. These tasks were completed in late 2019, and have been increased by 30% for the cost of inflation and other increases. More info here: https://www.citizensagain.com/estimates/build/

Citizens Again Cost to Run per Person:

The majority of annual expenditures will be from three known calculated items: staffing, meals, and healthcare. The costs of these items are calculated using published data. Variable costs include personal items (medicine, etc.) and other fluctuating costs associated with running the City. These tasks were completed in late 2019, and an adjustment increase of 30% for the cost of inflation and other increases has been added. More info here: https://www.citizensagain.com/estimates/run/

Citizens Again Staff

This is the onsite staff needed for every department in the City. A nominal amount of additional staff will be required if the City’s population doubles, or triples. Slider increments are based on 50k, 100k, and 150k populations.

Preliminary staffing estimates have been determined by performing a significant analysis of comparable city staffing ratios, and industry staffing standards, and balanced with an empathetic understanding of the higher needs of the citizens that would live in the Citizens Again city. These tasks were completed in late 2019, and are believed to be accurate in 2022. More info here: https://www.citizensagain.com/estimates/staff/