Last year, Utah made headlines for apparently solving chronic homelessness among its citizens by simply giving them homes. This year comes another so-obvious-we-should-have-seen-it-sooner report: Moving people into affordable housing lowers Medicaid costs....

“For many of my patients,” writes Dr. Megan Sandel in the reports foreword, “concerns about keeping up with doctor appointments and medications are far outweighed by trying to pay their rent on time or finding safe and stable housing.” In other words, if they have one less thing to worry about, more patients will seek preventive instead of emergency care....

As with those similar studies, the findings are obvious once they’re pointed out. Of course giving struggling people an added measure of stability allows them to plan ahead when it comes to health (as well as plenty of other things, like school and employment). But most studies that look at the link between health and housing focus on just permanent supportive housing, says CORE project manager Maggie Weller. Improvements in that population, much of which has been chronically homeless, aren’t that surprising.

Weller didn’t expect to see such dramatic improvements in other populations, but improve they did–even when people weren’t using other supportive services. “In this study we were able to look at family housing units and housing units for seniors and people with disability, and we saw those same changes in cost,” she says.