The new mandate: First, find them a home

In 2006, after six months in jail for panhandling, Harmon was released to a shelter. That was when Horizon House offered her an apartment. Now, Harmon spends a third of her government disability check on rent and utilities. Federal funds to Horizon House cover the rest.

She also receives mental health counseling, as well as weekly visits from a case manager who keeps track of her and helps with any household needs.

In an interview in December, Harmon said her days of drinking and using drugs were over. But sobriety is not required by Horizon House.

That day, Harmon showed off her sunny, small apartment in Northeast Philadelphia. She had a few pieces of donated furniture and used an upside-down cardboard box as a coffee table. "My apartment is just so beautiful," Harmon said.

She spoke animatedly about cooking liver for dinner the night before and her new best friend downstairs - another formerly homeless woman, named Sharon, who has been on her own since March.

"I get to cook and clean and have company," Harmon said.

The transition from the streets to homes is sometimes difficult. Some Horizon House clients have trouble with neighbors or continue their street ways. Harmon said she still panhandles.

Two decades ago, Philadelphia pioneered ways to help move people off the streets and into longer-term housing, starting with a communal residence for mentally ill women who were living on sidewalks. The program that helped Harmon takes the concept one step further.

David Dunbeck, director of homeless services for Horizon House, said his agency has other programs for homeless individuals to "earn the right to housing" by remaining clean and sober. But this new one, started in 2003, makes no such demand.

"People can be using," Dunbeck said. "But our goal is always to move them to sobriety."

Like Harmon, most of the people in the program are struggling with mental illness and addiction. They can live in their apartments permanently and have continuous access to treatment.

Since 2003, Horizon House has placed 159 people who were chronically homeless in apartments scattered throughout the city. Dunbeck said about 70 percent are still in their apartments, some now for several years.

Of those who drop out, some cannot escape their addictions and fall back to living on the streets. Some are incarcerated, some hospitalized. Others die of unmet medical needs from years of homelessness.

Still others cannot cope with living on their own, Dunbeck said. Clients can leave and return to the program, but only three times.

Dunbeck said results of the last five years have not affected who gets selected - it will always be the hardest-to-reach homeless - but they have influenced how the agency deals with clients moving forward.

Horizon House has clustered clients who might have a harder time living alone at one apartment house with on-site support staff.

"We're still learning and making adjustments," Dunbeck said. "But it's been really successful for a lot of individuals who have never, ever had success in our other programs."

Dunbeck said the $2 million program spends about $20,000 per person a year - $8,400 for rent, with the rest going for mental health treatment, transportation, case managers, and other services.

That cost must be weighed against what the city spends on public services - medical care, jails, shelters - for people stuck on the streets or shelters.