The reason this worked is because 1) the charity took the time to do economic modelling that shows the actual benefit to government in dollars, and 2) the scenario is actually tractable to this sort of modelling.
There are a lot of nonprofits out there that can't get funding because their benefits are difficult to quantify, or because their benefits are too diffused and doesn't impact government bottom line directly.
Also they seemed to have avoided the corruption that is rampant in social services. My town tried something very similar to this, starting off with a new apartment building for the "chronically homeless" which very curiously was constructed at a per-square-foot cost about 4x market averages.
Comments
The reason this worked is because 1) the charity took the time to do economic modelling that shows the actual benefit to government in dollars, and 2) the scenario is actually tractable to this sort of modelling.
There are a lot of nonprofits out there that can't get funding because their benefits are difficult to quantify, or because their benefits are too diffused and doesn't impact government bottom line directly.
Also they seemed to have avoided the corruption that is rampant in social services. My town tried something very similar to this, starting off with a new apartment building for the "chronically homeless" which very curiously was constructed at a per-square-foot cost about 4x market averages.
I wonder how many of these people use Dan Pallotta's 2013 TED Talk to rationalize their own corruption.