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A Bit of Cash Can Keep Someone Off the Streets For 2 Years or More (sciencemag.org)
An anonymous reader writes: If someone is about to become homeless, giving them a single cash infusion, averaging about $1000, may be enough to keep them off the streets for at least 2 years. That's the conclusion of a new study, which finds that programs that proactively assist those in need don't just help the victims -- they may benefit society as a whole. "I think this is a really important study, and it's really well done," says Beth Shinn, a community psychologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville who specializes in homelessness but was not involved in the work. Homelessness isn't just bad for its sufferers -- it shortens life span and hurts kids in school -- it's a burden on everyone else. Previous studies have concluded that a single period of homelessness can cost taxpayers $20,000 or more, in the form of welfare, policing, health care, maintaining homeless shelters, and other expenses. To combat homelessness, philanthropic organizations have either tried to prevent people from losing their homes in the first place or help them regain housing after they are already destitute. But there aren't many data on whether giving cash to people on the brink of becoming homeless actually prevents them from living on the street.
I'd favor a basic income. A very basic income. Something like the following.
For citizens and permanent residents (Green Card holders).
$500/month 21+ years old
$250/month for 21 and younger
Add $200/month/person if we get rid of S.N.A.P.
Increase progressive income taxes. Institute a 10% Universal Basic Income tax on AGI on citizens and permanent residents.
Not an addition to social security payments. More like an "expanded social security", except this is below the special minimum or wharever it is called.
I estimate it would cost $1.2 trillion to do the idea above.
There was a chapter in SuperFreakonomics about the cost of homelessness to society via emergency services and law enforcement and how free housing is a cost-effective solution. It's good to see another example of their hypothesis that simply providing free services to the homeless is cheaper than the status quo.
People against this idea who say "I'm a small government conservative and I don't believe in giving people free stuff" miss the point entirely; this saves money and reduces the size of government in turn. Anyone who has moral problem with saving money by helping people is likely an Ayn Rand fan or an asshole, but probably both;)
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
The study showed something much more specific than the summary mentions, and sometimes the opposite of what the headlines indicates.
Quoting the article, good outcomes were likely when :
--
giving one-time cash quantities to people on the brink of homelessness who can demonstrate that they will be able to pay rent by themselves in the future, but who have been afflicted by some nonrecurring crisis, such as a medical bill. Recipients need to be able to demonstrate consistent future income
--
Not so effective, the study found, was giving cash to people carelessly. If someone was broke last year, and the year before, and they were broke last month, they'll probably be broke again next month.
Personal experience helping ex-cons, alcoholics, and drug addicts is that *most* people will continue doing what they've been doing, and continue getting the same results. The trick is to find the ~5% who are doing something different, so they'll get different results, and help them.
1000 bucks can either buy a palace or a box under the bridge. It all depends on where you live.
The programs work by giving one-time cash quantities to people on the brink of homelessness who can demonstrate that they will be able to pay rent by themselves in the future, but who have been afflicted by some nonrecurring crisis, such as a medical bill.
I don't know how many of you have experience with being really poor, but if the rent/mortgage/light bill money is in jeopardy, the medical bill is from the County Hospital emergency room... and it goes in the circular file.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
In the area where I work, there are quite a few homeless people. I've seen one guy out here for 9 years now. He isn't homeless because of some financial disaster. He is homeless because he clearly has a disease of the brain. He spends quite a lot of his time locked in combat with somebody in the sky. I don't think giving him $1,000 or $1,000,000 would keep him off the streets for long, if at all. What he really needs to get him indoors is treatment for his disease, but as is the case with many people with his type of affliction, he'll probably be back out here sooner or later.
"Homelessness" isn't always somebody without a home who wants one. It's a problem you can't just throw money at to make it go away. You can't just give all of these people jobs and consider the problem solved. It needs to be treated as a symptom of a disease, and one that usually cannot be permanently cured. Even if you could cure it, they are still human beings who deserve to have their wishes respected, and if they refuse treatment you cannot just force it upon them. Some people make the choice to live out there, because it's easier to cope with their disease this way. The next time you see a homeless person, please don't look down on them like some dirty bum pushing a stolen cart full of blankets and trash; they're probably suffering far more than you'll ever know, and it's most likely not at all their fault that they're in that state.
There has also been experiments done with lump-sum welfare and monitoring how people are after a period.
There was even a TV show in the UK that generally tends to have way too many TV shows about benefits abuse.
Basic idea is give a years worth of welfare payments all at once.
A large percentage of these people, expectedly, had a once-off celebration before starting to get to work in order to actually get a stable income going, start their own business or find a job without having to worry their asses off about trying to make it to the next payment.
The psychology behind this torture of living from wage to wage is well understood and it is horribly detrimental to said people.
It's not like paying a year at a time would mean money would be lost, you DO have checks for when people have wage-paid jobs, when they get a job, they give you the money back, problem solved.
Of course, places like the UK and America just like to punish people on welfare, instead of using it to self-regulate the job sector by preventing employers from creating jobs so shitty and underpaid that nobody does them. :Punishing Welfare doesn't work. Punishing Prisons don't work. They've never worked. They never will work.
It works very well in Nordic countries. They have the strongest job sectors, best overall health, most stable economies on the planet.
The 2008 recession barely dented most of them, but in particular Norway who probably has the best model since they have a very nice buffering system to prevent all hell breaking loose in the event of the global economy shitting itself to any significant extent.
Stop it already.
These people WANT to be in jobs, these people want to make a decent living, but society throws them under the bus for being poor and unlucky. Even someone with a decent job could make one simple mistake and end up bankrupt, homeless and down the shitter in the space of a year.
The amount of people that want to abuse welfare and be lazy all day are an extremely small minority.
Even people that abuse drugs WANT a job so they can continue their habit. Very few of them want to turn to crime.
So what if there is abuse? If the end result is a cost savings to society and an improvement in the life of most involved why not? I constantly hear this from conservative friends that we can not allow people to abuse the system - look at the people selling food stamps to buy drugs - OMG! when the fact is that a very small percentage do abuse the system while the vast majority are helped by it.
It has always fascinated me how even a single instance of welfare fraud is unacceptable, but multiple executions of innocent individuals is an acceptable cost to getting the bad guys.
American Culture seems to be strongly influenced by 'every man for himself'; or more subtly, your destiny is made by you and the effort you put into life. If you happen to be lazy, then suffer you.
I think there are three levels of maturity in a people and society:
1- Dependency (Child Stage)
2- Independence (Late Teen Stage). ie I can do it without anyone's help
3- Interdependence (Mature Stage) we all need to work together.
The USA seems to have gotten stuck between 2 & 3, while Europe/Canada/Australia went on to stage 3.
ie, We have strong social support systems such as good basic free medical care, good basic social security services, humane prisons with some attempt to reform.
While I as a tax payer don't like supporting lazy people, I think it is the lesser of two evils. ie having destitute people resort to crime with all the associated costs.
So I think the article is right, but culturally I don't see the USA ever changing within my lifetime.
46137
Ya this very much seems to be a case of providing a safety net for someone who doesn't have one or who has run through theirs. I can see why that would help. Unless you are super rich, you can get hit with expenses just beyond your ability to deal with. Even if you have a few million, there are still edge cases that can happen that can deplete your resources. Of course the less you have, the easier it is to get them depleted.
Well when that happens, it can snowball real bad and you lose everything, it gets in a positive feedback loop. So some financial assistance can stop that, it can break the feedback loop. You pay off the debt, which prevents interest from accumulating, which would necessitate more debt, which leads to a unsustainable level and so on.
Makes a lot of sense to me that this would have a positive effect and be a good idea, but within the listed constraints. Just giving people money rarely helps.
I've seen both in my family. I've seen a couple family members bailed out by others when they had a crisis, and they are doing well today. I also have a family member who is ALWAYS broke ALWAYS having money problems and no amount of money will help her because she causes her own problems.
So what? The studies on the "drug test those on welfare" have shown that the tests cost more than the benefits received by those who tested positive. If you want financial responsibility, you should pay out the drug users. But we don't want "responsibility", we want punitive games. Punish people we don't like, even if the cost of the punishment is much greater than the problem caused. Most welfare recipients are white, but people think of the "average" welfare recipient as a Black person. Why? Studies have shown that if you show the plight of poor whites, then ask about welfare, people are more willing to increase welfare, than if you ask without that background, or show Blacks on welfare.
It's more a racial issue than a financial one.
Learn to love Alaska
#3 is a red herring. It's the demon that's invented to lump all the #1 into, so we don't have to think about the millions of responsible and stable people who end up homeless.
Almost all homeless are #1. And $1000 could make all the difference. But if you hate #3 so much that you'r rather have 1,000,000 #1 than pay 10 #3, then it's not a financial choice, but a personal and punitive one.
Learn to love Alaska
A true crisis is 10 (or whatever) things, and the car breaks down. $1000 could fix/replace the car, and start back on the road to recovery. But selling the broken car for $50 and losing your job because you can't get to work on time without a car results in the homelessness.
I've seen multiple people where they had the choice of eat or be homeless. Often it's people right on the edge, then work decides to cut their hours a little, squeezes down. They start looking for something else, but don't find anything by the time their income won't cover the basics. The buffer gives them more time to find another job, or spend the money to cut costs.
,br>So often saving money is expensive. How does someone without a car move home to a cheaper one? Rent something to take their stuff. So it takes money to save money.
Learn to love Alaska
Don't fuck up under any circumstances, whether you can control it or not, because if you do you WILL become homeless. Here is some of what to expect: You WILL be labeled a lazy bum (does not matter if you hold down a job like many homeless do) You WILL be labeled mentally ill (as if this is somebodys fault, or that al homeless are like that) You WILL be labled a drug addict (even if you never touchef the stuff. Also, drug addiction is considered a much graver sin if it is someone who is homeless) The police WILL stop, harrass, and run your name to see if you have warrants, if they find out you are homeless, or if you are showing any signs you may be homeless (dirty clothes, unkempt apperance, worn out bag or tattered clothing, carrying an excessive amount of things, to name a few.) Being seen too many times in certain areas during certain times/number of times will tip them off for sure. Expect to find it very hard to get any sleep. Hundreds of cities in the US made it flat out illegal to just sit down on a sidewalk, and parks close at night, have sprinklers that are ment to keep the homeless away. If you think you can go to a library or Starbucks to sleep, think again, as those places are patrolled by employees and sometimes police officers *who are actively looking for people sleeping* and they will wake you up and tell you you are not allowed to sleep there. Especialy if they think you are homeless You WILL be denied employment if an employer gets wind of your homeless situation. You may even be fired from any job you have now for the same reason. Most of your "friends" WILL abandon you, and tell you to never speak to them again (homelessness is seen as a MORAL failing in the United States) You WILL be wide open to physical assaults, robbery, rape (if female), and the police won't care most of the time. All of this dosen't just come from other homeless, or criminals, but teenagers seeking a thrill ("Bumfights" was hugely popular), and there have been quite a few cases of teens setting homeless people on fire in their sleep. You probaly won't be able to get any help for a very long time, as the shelters are always "full", and many are extremly dangerous and not fit for an animal. It really sucks if you are not a vet, over 25 years old, or under 65 years old. Remember that the jaws of homelessness are always just inches from your face at all time, so don't fuck up, ok?
Yes it is far better to prevent it in the first place. The government not only cannot do this; they do not want to because a large portion of government funds and jobs go into running homeless shelters. The motivation the government has as a whole is to create more poor people, not fewer.
The sooner you realize the government has evolved to farm poor people for its own growth, the better off you will be.
Contribute to private charities, they are actually trying to help people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
RE: "giving one-time cash quantities to people on the brink of homelessness who can demonstrate that they will be able to pay rent by themselves in the future, but who have been afflicted by some nonrecurring crisis, such as a medical bill. Recipients need to be able to demonstrate consistent future income."
Well that's quite a different scenario! And that makes sense. As usual, the article did not mention that.
Seems like almost every "news" source these days tells only half the truth.
It's literally a quote FROM THE FUCKING ARTICLE, and the post you replied to specifically said it was from the article. You didn't read the article or the post (or at least didn't comprehend them) then you bitch about the media not keeping you informed. If you want to see who is keeping you uninformed, look in a mirror.
Enigma
YOU didn't come here for Basic Income. You work in the US, you own a small part of the US (a house), and have an American family, and I notice you write (very) American English. You've decided to basically become an American now, it seems. A "new American" I've heard such immigrants called.) You just haven't made it official.
The proposal is:
$500/month 21+ years old
$250/month for 21 and younger
So a family of four gets $1,500 / month from tax payers like you and I.
The average family in Mexico is four people earning $850/month.
They'd get more money by coming to the US and NOT working than by staying in Mexico and working. Do you think that might be attractive to some people? Considering not just Mexico, but all of Central and South America, maybe a few million people?
Do you have a spare $1,500/month to pay for someone who wants to come here and not work?
That's why, despite the "unfairness" to "new Americans" like you who have chosen not to make it official, we can't offer a free "five percenter" income to anybody who feels like showing up without even working. Probably tens of millions of people would love to double their income and not even have to work anymore. That incentive is too strong.
Probably tens of millions of people would love to double their income and not even have to work anymore. That incentive is too strong.
Funny how this argument never comes up for Billionaires, they are special flowers who are carrying the rest of society and shouldn't be taxed at all lest they desert us...
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
My unsupported assertions trump research every time.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Libertarians across the USA are scrambling to explain that giving people cash before they go homeless will only turn them into dependent slaves and no matter what the science says it is guaranteed to doom them to poverty even faster while simultaneously requiring the stealing of money from people who worked harder than they did because libertarians can't quite figure out that there is such a thing as luck and sometimes somebody can have great luck and sometimes you can have terrible luck and a huge chunk of the luck you have in life is already present in who your parents are and what color their skins is.
Because libertarians would rather trip over sidewalks full of starved corpses than spend an extra dollar in taxes.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I earn well over half a million - and me and my family very nearly were homeless last year, just because of a spate of bad luck. In April I changed jobs - it was a much better opportunity but it came with a year of contract work first, a risk I thought was worth taking because of how great an opportunity it was, in May my daughter had an accident and needed surgery, insurance refused to pay - and I was out many thousands.
This was followed by a whole sequence of similar unpredictable and unavoidable massive expenses - the last of which was November. One of the many things I hadn't been able to pay while going deeper and deeper into debt to service these disasters was servicing my car (which I need to make money). In November the cambelt shattered and the engine was destroyed, the cost of that repair was almost as much as my daughter's surgery.
By the end of November I had more debt on ONE credit card than 10% of my annual brute income !
I was on the verge of bankruptcy and homelessness. The only reason I could avoid it was one tiny bit of good luck -I had family able to help.
That is the kind of story behind MOST people who end up homeless.
Don't worry - a year later, I am well within my means again, and life is getting better for us every month - but it was seriously close and without family with money, we'd not have been able to weather that storm.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I fully understand the feelings behind your comment. I've been homeless, I've seen a lot of things. It's annoying to see people waste money while you're struggling.
The correct logic is the same in either case. If you create an strong economic incentive for poor people to come to a country, they'll try to do so; if you create a strong economic incentive for rich people to come to a country (or send their money there), they'll try to do so.
A guy with $100 to his name probably has it in his wallet, or in his checking account. A billionaire doesn't have a millions of $20 bills in his a wallet, a billionaire owns Tesla, Amazon, or some other company. The "billion dollars" isn't actual dollars, it's a company or two. Sending his billion dollars to some other company means sending the company there. It is indeed bad for the economy when a company moves their operations away - see Detroit for an example.
Sounds a lot like the St. Vincent de Paul society. http://www.svdpusa.org/
They seem to have chapters at just about every Catholic church I have been to.
You go to the church asking for help, the put you in contact with St VdP and you explain your need to them.
From what I understand there is usually a home-visit checking for things like 'I can't pay my electric bill because I spent all my money on a new $500 TV'
Then they help you pay the bills you need help with.
Aside from checking for frivolous expenditures, the only requirement I am aware of is you need to go to the church which serves your geographic location(your parish). As far as I am aware there is no requirement related to your religion, but it would probably be a good idea to take down any symbols or decorations around your house that may leave a bad taste in the mouth of those coming to see if you would make responsible use of the money you are asking them for.