Cost Comparison of Congregate, Motel, and Village-Type Shelters for People Experiencing Homelessness
Sponsor
This work was supported by Multnomah County Joint Office of Homeless Services [grant number JOHS-IGA-E-14608-2023].
Published In
Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-3-2025
Subjects
Homelessness -- Oregon -- Portland, Shelters for the homeless -- Oregon -- Portland, Shelters for the homeless -- United States -- Case studies, Shelters for the homeless -- United States -- Cost estimates
Abstract
Village and motel shelters exemplify the expanding field of “alternative” shelters for people experiencing homelessness, largely defined in contrast to “traditional” congregate shelters. Little research compares the financial costs of alternative and traditional shelter models. The research team analyzed cost data for 13 alternative shelters (six villages and seven motel shelters) and nine traditional congregate shelters in Portland, Oregon. Costs were assessed per “unit” (i.e. shelter bed or motel room) to account for differences in shelter sizes. Village shelters had the highest per-unit set-up costs ($99,630), followed by motel shelters ($88,462), while congregate shelters had the lowest ($43,692). Congregate shelters had the lowest annual operating costs per unit, at $16,654, with village shelters at $29,681 and motel shelters at $28,409. Although congregate shelters had the lowest costs, other factors such as community needs, site availability, and client experiences and outcomes should also be considered when planning new shelters.
Rights
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
DOI
10.1080/10530789.2025.2473756
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/43067
Citation Details
Jacen Greene, Todd Ferry, Emily Leickly & Franklin Holcomb Spurbeck (03 Mar 2025): Cost comparison of congregate, motel, and village-type shelters for people experiencing homelessness, Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness, DOI: 10.1080/10530789.2025.2473756
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