The basic mark of a decent society is that everyone has somewhere safe to sleep at night.

Durham got a little more decent this week when Housing for New Hope opened the doors at Williams Square Apartments.

The 24 efficiency units that make up the complex are furnished with simple, sturdy wooden furniture and decorated with bright linens from Target. When they were freshly painted and set up like model showplaces, the apartments were bright and cheerful, from the mini-fridges humming in the tiny kitchenettes to the gleaming faucets in the private bathrooms.

As the residents move in, the shine and polish may rub off, but the essential promise of the space will be undimmed.

This is where Durham's long-term homeless population can find a home and the wrap-around supportive services that will help them stay sober and find medical and mental health services.

Permanent supportive housing has its critics, people who are offended by the expense of relieving chronic homelessness. They see it as unfair, an absurd and possibly immoral handout to people whose choices have landed them on the streets, over and over. The skeptics are the ones who most need to visit Williams Square or go on a Housing for New Hope tour, to hear the stories and data that demonstrate how much more efficient and cost-effective it is to build supportive housing. It cuts down on emergency room visits. It relieves pressure on law enforcement. (The Malcolm Gladwell essay "Million-dollar Murray" is particularly good on this subject.)

People who argue for the law of the jungle -- survival of the fittest -- are missing the point.

The small apartments, scaled to cost no more than 30 percent of the Social Security or disability income that they receive, include one important feature that is so humble, so common that people who have never spent time on the streets or in a homeless shelter barely notice it: a door.

Virginia Woolf wrote that women need "a room of one's own" in order to become writers.

We argue that all people need a simpler thing, a door, in order to become full members of society. A door affords privacy -- a rare commodity for many of Williams Square's residents -- but also the choice of whether to open it.