In a 2006 New Yorker article, “Million-Dollar Murray,” author Malcolm Gladwell told the story of Murray Barr, an alcoholic who had spent a decade living on the streets of Reno.

The “system” had failed Murray, giving him temporary housing while he completed mandatory rehab and work training programs. But he later returned to the streets and the bottle, racking up frequent and expensive hospital bills at taxpayers’ expense. One Reno police officer told Gladwell, “It cost us one million dollars to not do something about Murray.”

“Million-Dollar Murray” was Gladwell’s argument for Housing First, a then-novel approach to the homelessness problem. Gladwell’s point was that a small percentage of the homeless population—generally, those classified as chronically homeless—account for most of the costs. Therefore, it would be cheaper to simply hand them apartment keys, no questions asked.

A decade has passed since Housing First became federal policy, and Gladwell’s expectations have proven to be quite wrong. Federal homelessness spending has nearly doubled from $1.7 billion in 2013 to $3.2 billion in 2023. State and local spending also has increased dramatically.