The Return on Investment

A rec center saves money — and saves lives.

This is the argument for the taxpayer who asks “can we afford it?” The honest answer: a recreation center is preventive infrastructure. It pays for itself by heading off the far more expensive problems on both ends of the age spectrum — idle teens and isolated seniors.

The Bottom Line

Prevention is dramatically cheaper than the alternative.

Pennsylvania's Joint State Government Commission — a nonpartisan government research arm — estimated that every $1 invested in out-of-school programming returns approximately $6.69, through reduced high-school dropouts, teen pregnancy, substance use, and crime. That return comes from preventing the expensive outcomes a community pays for either way.

~$6.69Returned per $1 invested

$214,620Avg. per year to incarcerate one youth

~$292,000Lifetime taxpayer cost per dropout

$6.7BExtra annual Medicare from senior isolation

ROI figure is a modeled estimate— Pennsylvania Joint State Government Commission, “Return on Investment of Afterschool Programs in Pennsylvania” (2021). Incarceration figure is the average state cost of secure youth confinement (Justice Policy Institute, Sticker Shock 2020). Dropout cost: Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University (2009) — also a modeled estimate. Medicare figure: AARP Public Policy Institute / Stanford (2017). These are national figures — see the honesty note at the bottom of this page.

Topic 1 — Our Teens

The most dangerous hours of a teenager's day are 3 to 6 p.m.

When the school bell rings and no adult is waiting, risk spikes. The federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) finds violent crime by juveniles peaks between 3 and 4 p.m. on school days — a pattern that vanishes on non-school days. Teens are also at their highest risk of becoming victims in those same hours. A rec center turns the empty after-school window into a supervised one.

3–4pmPeak hour for juvenile violent crime (OJJDP)

60%Greater risk of teen victimization after school

~1 in 5Juvenile violent crimes occur 3–7pm

7.7MU.S. kids alone & unsupervised after school

Structured programs don't just supervise — they change outcomes.

Quality after-school and recreation participants have better grades and attendance, are more likely to graduate, and show lower rates of illicit drug use, smoking, and delinquency. The CDC found 66% of high schoolers with mostly A's played on a sports team, versus 42% of those with mostly D's and F's. Youth with zero days of weekly physical activity report feeling depressed or hopeless at more than twice the rate of youth active every day (Aspen Institute).

National data (OJJDP, CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey, Afterschool Alliance “America After 3PM”). Risk-reduction is strongest for illicit drugs, smoking, and delinquency; some research shows higher binge-drinking among athletes, so we state this precisely.

Why Idaho should pay attention

Our teens are already at elevated risk — this isn't a hypothetical.

→Idaho consistently ranks among the worst states for teen suicide (46th for 15–19 suicide, America's Health Rankings 2020 edition); the 10–17 rate rose from 8 to 10.7 per 100,000 between 2016 and 2021 (Idaho DHW).
→Roughly 1 in 5 Idaho teens vape regularly — about twice the national average (Idaho Public Television, 2024).
→Idaho's four-year graduation rate (82.3% in 2024) remains among the nation's lowest, and only 24% of Idaho kids 6–17 are physically active an hour a day.

Topic 2 — Our Seniors

Loneliness is as deadly as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

That's not a metaphor — it's the finding of the U.S. Surgeon General's 2023 advisory on the epidemic of loneliness and isolation. Twin Falls is a regional retirement hub with one of the fastest-growing senior populations in the country, which makes this both a human crisis and a budget one. A rec center is the rare public place that delivers the single most protective factor: regular, low-cost social connection.

16%Lower total healthcare costs (SilverSneakers)

42%Fewer hospital stays for participants

18%Fewer ER visits for participants

1 in 6Twin Falls County residents are 65+

The cost of doing nothing

Social isolation is tied to an estimated $6.7 billion in additional Medicare spending every year — about $1,608 more per isolated senior (AARP/Stanford). Poor social connection raises heart-disease risk 29% and stroke risk 32%. Falls — the leading cause of injury death for seniors — cost about $80 billion in 2020, two-thirds paid by Medicare. Evidence-based strength and balance programs cut fall risk roughly a third.

A regional aging hub

Idaho's 65+ population grew 51.1% over the decade ending 2024 — second only to Alaska — and is projected to keep climbing, with the 85+ cohort growing fastest. Roughly 1 in 6 Twin Falls County residents is already 65+. Rural seniors are especially vulnerable to isolation given distance, limited transit, and provider shortages. Recreation programming directly counters all of it.

Surgeon General's Advisory (2023); Holt-Lunstad meta-analysis (BYU, 2010); AARP/Stanford (2017); SilverSneakers / Avalere Health (2021, an industry-funded study — Tivity Health owns SilverSneakers); Otago Exercise Programme for fall-risk reduction; CDC falls data. Senior cost-and-outcome figures are national; Idaho demographic figures are state/county-specific (65+ growth: Census/USAFacts; projections: Idaho Dept. of Labor).

One Roof, Two Generations

Your kids and your parents — under the same roof.

A recreation center is uniquely efficient because it serves youth and seniors simultaneously. The same building, the same staff, the same operating cost, spread across two populations and the whole community. Intergenerational programs reduce ageism, give seniors renewed purpose, and help kids build empathy and resilience (Generations United). In the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the seniors who invested in younger generations — what researchers call generativity — tripled their odds of a joyful, rather than despairing, decade in their 70s (Vaillant, Aging Well).

It is, quite literally, a community's living room — from the retired farmer on the indoor track to the kid in an after-school program, one of the few public places that serves every age at once.

An honest note on these numbers.

We hold ourselves to the same standard we ask of the city: show your work. The national research above — OJJDP's after-school crime window, the after-school ROI ratios, the Medicare and SilverSneakers figures — is the authoritative backbone of this case, and it has been replicated for years. Where we cite an Idaho or Twin Falls County figure, we say so explicitly.

What would make this case airtight is local data: Twin Falls County juvenile citation patterns by time of day, district graduation and youth-survey numbers, and a county senior-isolation needs assessment. We're gathering it. If you can help us get it, reach out.