Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There

by Rutger Bregman

Like poverty, solving the homelessness problem is preferable to merely managing it.31 The principle of “housing first,” as this strategy is called, has already circled the globe. Back in 2005, you couldn’t walk around downtown Amsterdam or Rotterdam without seeing people living out on the street. Homeless people were a particular problem around train stations, and a very expensive one at that. Consequently, as Lloyd Pendleton rolled out his plan in Utah, social workers, public officials, and politicians from major Dutch cities convened to figure out how to tackle this problem in the Netherlands. They drew up an action plan. The budget: $217 million. The aim: get all homeless people off the street. The site: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht first, then nationwide. The strategy: counseling and – sure enough – free housing for everyone. The timeline: February 2006 to February 2014. It was an unmitigated success. After just a couple of years, the problem of vagrancy in the big cities had been reduced by 65%. Drug use was down by half. The beneficiaries’ mental and physical health improved significantly, and park benches were finally vacant. By October 1, 2008, the program had brought nearly 6,500 homeless people in off the streets.32 And to top it off, the financial returns for society proved double the original investments.33