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Q&A
Cost comparison between incarceration and supportive housing
0:46:31
·
110 sec
Council Member Narcisse initiates a discussion on the cost differences between incarceration and supportive housing, highlighting the potential for significant savings.
- It costs about $400,000 per year to incarcerate someone at Rikers Island.
- Supportive housing costs approximately $55,000 per year per person.
- Narcisse emphasizes the inhumanity of putting individuals with mental illness in jail and advocates for supportive housing as a more humane and cost-effective alternative.
Mercedes Narcisse
0:46:31
So the I think the board I mean Jermani just mentioned that public advocate it takes about 400,000 a year to jail someone over there, But for the model that you're talking about, how much that will cost to have someone in a home based jail?
0:46:56
How much that would cost per year?
Stanley Richards
0:47:00
Are you referring to like supportive housing?
Mercedes Narcisse
0:47:02
Yes, supporting houses, sorry.
Althea V. Stevens
0:47:03
Yes, supporting
Stanley Richards
0:47:04
houses.
0:47:04
Supportive housing is around 55,000 a year.
Mercedes Narcisse
0:47:07
55,000 a year.
0:47:09
So we can save so much money and yet we can spend much less to house someone, right?
0:47:17
I'm totally in support housing because supportive housing is a place where people can be, you can be a person and I truly believe is inhuman to put someone with mental illness in a jail system.
0:47:32
We have to learn to triage that, right?
0:47:35
And we can compare.
0:47:37
We know the world we're not living in a bubble.
0:47:40
If you look at places like Norway, the percentage of people but they're based on the rehab process, they don't based on just putting people in jail, but they want people to come back to society and to be a human being and I thank you for describing that.
Sandy Nurse
0:47:58
Being a nurse working with folks,
Mercedes Narcisse
0:48:00
visited Rikers, one of the things that I walked out with is how inhuman it is for us to continue this process.
0:48:11
So I'm saying that the money wise is penny wise dollar foolish.
0:48:16
If we put people, we can react people and put them back in society.