The Charles Cobb Apartment Complex - Skid Row Housing Trust

LOS ANGELES - APRIL 21: The building manager of the Charles Cobb Apartments, Melannie Dixon, shuts the door to her one room apartment April 21, 2010 in downtown Los Angeles, California. With construction completed in January, 2010, members of the chronically homeless and low income community were able to take up residency in the converted 75-unit Charles Cobb Apartments in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, California. Designed by architects Kivotos Montenegro Partners, the Cobb Apartments were built to alleviate the country's largest population of homeless. To qualify for renting a single occupancy room, tenants need to be homeless for longer than one year and pass a crime and drug history check. The Skid Row Housing Trust organized the project's funding and management in an effort to clean up downtown Los Angeles. Tenants pay one third of their income for rent. Data collected from cities other than Los Angeles show that a typical homeless individual can cost the government an average of $40,000 a year in emergency room visits, arrests and incarcerations. By contrast, the same individual living in a permanent supportive housing apartment runs $10,000 to $15,000 per year. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)