Chronic Homeless are a Small Percentage - Right?

Only 20% of the homeless population that utilize homeless shelters use it for more than a month.  80% of the users of these facilities come into a shelter once or maybe twice.  Their stays are usually short(a month or less) and after that they never come back.  Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?  Only 20% routinely utilize the system and the resources that it provides.  Think again!

Approximately half of this 20% come into homeless shelters an average of 5 time per year and stay nearly two months each time.  That is 10 out of the 12 months!  The other half - they only come in one or two times each year, but there stays are extended and they average 280 days per stay. 


But here is the interesting part!  This 20% of the overall homeless population uses up over 50% of all the available resources!  The other 80% uses less than half of the resources that are available.  So, in these economic times, isn't it about time that we get serious about the problem of chronic homelessness?  Think of the amount of services that would be available if we could reduce the chronic population to even 10%.  Or, even better, 5%.  How many more people could get the assistance they need if the services were available.  And this is without adding any more money to the budget.