South Australia has launched a social impact bond to reduce homelessness.
It has taken 17 months, but Australian investors now have the chance to fund a $9 million social impact bond targeting chronic homelessness.
The 7.75-year bonds will finance “housing first” pay-for-success interventions in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne that will house 600 people.
The premise: the key to fighting homelessness, and related criminal justice, health and substance abuse issues, is to first give people a permanent place to live.
Common Ground Adelaide, one of the organizations to be funded by the bond, claims to have a 95 percent success rate.
The bond will pay an 8.5 percent annual return — if it meets its targets.
Photo credit: Reuters/Tim Wimborne
