Ending Homelessness

"It's like winning the lottery," he said. "I don't have to worry about the cold. If I go out, I want to come back because it's my home."

As part of the coalition's advocacy for a more comprehensive approach, London hired a consultant to evaluate what it might cost to switch to a Housing First system.

The draft report by Abt Associates estimated it would cost the county $14.7 million to shift its emphasis from shelters and transitional units to permanent housing. The report's authors said most of that money -- $10 million -- could come from redirecting what they estimated the county currently spends on efforts to help the homeless.

Leventhal and Knapp said their $4 million figure is based in part on the report's estimates, although they said the figures must still be vetted by county staff.

Nan Roman, president and chief executive of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said the Knapp and Leventhal initiative might be one of the most ambitious in the region.

"What's so exciting about the Montgomery County proposal is that it seeks to make it more consistently the approach across the board," Roman said. "Before, it was more of a program-by-program approach. Now, you have the whole jurisdiction -- the whole county."

As in Montgomery, most current programs in the United States funnel people into networks of temporary shelters, where they receive services until they are considered stable enough to be placed into permanent homes, said Dennis Culhane, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Policy and Practice, who has studied the approach. Because much of the money is allocated to meet temporary needs, he said, there's often no money left to provide permanent homes.

Although some cities have found success in reducing the homeless population by using a Housing First model, a recent report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development found mixed results.

Knapp is optimistic that the homeless problem can be solved.

"It's Montgomery County," Knapp said. "We've been blessed with a significant amount of resources. We can create a model that can identify ways to do this efficiently, to show how it can be done. If we can't do it here, you can't do it."