Businesses Invest In City Plan To Fight Homelessness

"Mike Guyton considers his company's involvement as a matter of simple economics. Guyton is vice president of customer operations with Encore Electric Delivery and a board member with United Way of Tarrant County.

'A lot of times we might think: ‘Hey, we're not spending any money at all on the homeless,' but if you look at the numbers, we're all spending roughly $30 million on housing, taking homeless people to hospitals, which the hospitals then let them out, something happens, and they go back,' to the hospital, Guyton said. 'We're not ever solving the problem. From the business standpoint, it makes sense. It will be cheaper to actually solve the problem.'

A solution to chronic homelessness – defined as a period of more than 12 months without a secure living environment – is a goal of the Directions Home plan the City of Fort Worth adopted this year.

The plan also aims to make homelessness rare, short-term and non-recurring by 2018, by providing a combination of housing and services."