Current Events > Study: Unconditional cash transfers reduce homelessness

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2222103120

Homelessness is an economic and social crisis. In a cluster-randomized controlled trial, we address a core cause of homelessnesslack of moneyby providing a one-time unconditional cash transfer of CAD$7,500 to each of 50 individuals experiencing homelessness, with another 65 as controls in Vancouver, BC. Exploratory analyses showed that over 1 y, cash recipients spent fewer days homeless, increased savings and spending with no increase in temptation goods spending, and generated societal net savings of $777 per recipient via reduced time in shelters. Additional experiments revealed public mistrust toward the ability of homeless individuals to manage money and demonstrated interventions to increase public support for a cash transfer policy using counter-stereotypical or utilitarian messaging. Together, this research offers a new approach to address homelessness and provides insights into homelessness reduction policies.

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There are actually a lot of people who will tell you that simply giving money to people experiencing homelessness won't solve anything.

And at any rate, it is good to test even things that seem obvious.

That by giving them something, they'll be able to give back.
like, it's cheaper to house the homeless people than provide a bunch of services during the day to support them. It's a bigger cost at one point, but cheaper in the long run.

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Yes but you try to say this on the Internet and people will be like "source?"

meanwhile bitter people make it illegal to give money to the homeless

Intro2Logic posted...

There are actually a lot of people who will tell you that simply giving money to people experiencing homelessness won't solve anything.

And at any rate, it is good to test even things that seem obvious.

oh you don't believe that? the first sentence?

Giving homeless people money to get homes is not a new approach. Do these people think that they just invented the concept of UBI or something?

DoubleOSnake posted...

oh you don't believe that? the first sentence?

No, I think giving people money when their problem is not having enough tends to work.

Y'all are being intentionally dense. This is a good study.

Yeah it makes sense that giving homeless people money helps them, i'm on board with that

Our preregistered screening criteria were: age 19 to 65, homeless for less than 2 y (homelessness defined as the lack of stable housing), Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and nonsevere levels of substance use (DAST-10) (21), alcohol use (AUDIT) (22), and mental health symptoms

This is a non trivial qualifier though, and i think it's the kind of thing critics will be critical of

This is a good study, it shows that homeless people are responsible the money they are given. They don't spend on reckless things.

If they were reckless, they would spend on reckless things and run out of cash.

g980 posted...

Yeah it makes sense that giving homeless people money helps them, i'm on board with that

This is a non trivial qualifier though, and i think it's the kind of thing critics will be critical of

Its a fair criticism to say that this is only likely to be accurate for a specific, narrowly defined portion of the homeless population. It would be silly to write it off because of that, though. Perfect being the enemy of good and all that, it remains a simple way to help a large amount of people.

Tenlaar posted...

Giving homeless people money to get homes is not a new approach. Do these people think that they just invented the concept of UBI or something?

Agreed - there was/has been a program in Utah (I think) that provided housing and saw both significant and long term decrease in homelessness

g980 posted...

Yeah it makes sense that giving homeless people money helps them, i'm on board with that

This is a non trivial qualifier though, and i think it's the kind of thing critics will be critical of

Also that half the cash recipients were given financial coaches:

In condition 1, 25 participants (nshelters = 5) were provided with a one-time cash transfer of $7,500, workshop, and coaching. In condition 2, 25 participants (nshelters = 5) were provided with the cash transfer and workshop but no coaching.

the effects were mostly present in the first 3 months as the money was being spent:

The benefits of the cash transfer were the most pronounced in the first 3 mo. This can be due to several reasons. First, the cost of living is extremely high in Vancouver, and the majority of the cash was spent within the first 3 mo for most recipients.

and ultimately it had no long term impact:

The cash transfer did not have overall impacts on employment, cognitive function, subjective well-being, alcohol use severity, education, or food security, yet there were some short-term impacts on these outcomes.

That being said, the savings from the days they weren't in shelters saved the county money overall, so there's certainly some benefits:

By reducing time in shelters, the cash transfer was cost-effective. The societal cost of a shelter stay in Vancouver is estimated at $93 per night (6), so fewer nights in shelters generated a societal cost savings of $8,277. After accounting for the cost of the cash transfer, the reduced shelter use led to societal net savings of $777 per person a year.

They're called unhoused, you bigots

g980 posted...

This is a non trivial qualifier though, and i think it's the kind of thing critics will be critical of

If you believe that drug use is a symptom or result of homelessness, a study that can prove those issues can be headed off at the pass can serve as a selling point in the future for a large scale program that reduces overall drug and alcohol addiction (through this intervention and prevention) on the streets.

Then you can do another study about getting the people who are out there and addicted clean and housed.

It feels like a sound approach, anyway.

supermichael11 posted...

This is a good study, it shows that homeless people are responsible the money they are given. They don't spend on reckless things.

If they were reckless, they would spend on reckless things and run out of cash.

Quoted for those having trouble interpreting the OP.

Tenlaar posted...

Its a fair criticism to say that this is only likely to be accurate for a specific, narrowly defined portion of the homeless population. It would be silly to write it off because of that, though. Perfect being the enemy of good and all that, it remains a simple way to help a large amount of people.

Agreed

The severe drug addicts need a different kind of help, which we should also provide if whatever city has the resources to do so

I think sometimes there's a resistance to segmenting the homeless folk in a way that is counter productive and it's a bummer

So i guess my tldr is:
This is a good unsurprising result
I dont think we should sweep the screening restrictions under the rug, but recognize that its ok to help those who can be helped this way and spend money differently for people who cant

It depends on how you're defining homelessness. Most people probably think of the on-the-street, visible population. That's a different demographic from the displaced but still functional population. Both are problems that need to be solved, but it kind of muddies the waters when they're lumped into the same demographic.

It's almost like allowing people the ability to care for themselves reduces the strain on social systems. We really hate those damn freeloaders, though. We are so convinced that the problem lies with the 10% of people at the bottom rung of the ladder, not the 1% of the people at the top.

$7500 CAD is about $5500 in USD.

That's a significant chunk of change to give someone is one lump sum. Would be solid "reset" amount for a lot of people. That's right around what the average US citizen holds in credit card debt.

So to give that amount to anyone would significantly change their financials going forward.

As opposed to, say, giving them $200 a week, where they are more likely to spend it on a luxury as opposed to a necessity.

I think that's where the "giving the poor money doesn't work" argument comes from. The problem isn't giving them money, the problem is not giving them ENOUGH money.

Unhousedness

Alucard188 posted...

It's almost like allowing people the ability to care for themselves reduces the strain on social systems. We really hate those damn freeloaders, though. We are so convinced that the problem lies with the 10% of people at the bottom rung of the ladder, not the 1% of the people at the top.

There are problems with the 0-100% percentiles, i know its comforting to think wealth somehow turns you evil or evil is somehow a pre requisite for wealth but that isnt actually how it works in reality

g980 posted...

There are problems with the 0-100% percentiles, i know its comforting to think wealth somehow turns you evil or evil is somehow a pre requisite for wealth but that isnt actually how it works in reality

Money buys happiness. Up to a point.

Then, at that point, you become an asshole and a sociopath, completely disconnected from reality.

Some More News quoted a bunch of stats about it, but it's nothing that people who are genuinely middle and lower class haven't known for... ever.

Intro2Logic posted...

Exploratory analyses showed that over 1 y, cash recipients spent fewer days homeless

This is vague. I'm not surprised that 7.5k helped people be homeless less over a year. How much time on average did they still spend homeless though over the year? How many were homeless again after the year?

DnDer posted...

Money buys happiness. Up to a point.

Then, at that point, you become an asshole and a sociopath, completely disconnected from reality.

Some More News quoted a bunch of stats about it, but it's nothing that people who are genuinely middle and lower class haven't known for... ever.

Lol whatever classist shit helps you sleep at night

bigblu89 posted...

$7500 CAD is about $5500 in USD.

Which, when given to 50 people, totals $375000CAD / $275000USD.
That's the reason pilot programs like this, that show promise, never really expand beyond that: the funding for a mass-rollout just doesn't exist.

First time I've ever seen someone argue that reverse classism is an issue lmao

You know that giving poor people money works because rich people are against it.

Give poor people money. Vacate corporate real estate and give it to homeless people. Let people work from home. Tax the rich.

"They're just gonna use that money for booze and drugs!"

*reads article*

"Well...they're just gonna use that money to get steady housing and a job, which will make them more money, and then they'll just waste it on booze and drugs!!"

Questionmarktarius posted...

Which, when given to 50 people, totals $375000CAD / $275000USD.
That's the reason pilot programs like this, that show promise, never really expand beyond that: the funding for a mass-rollout just doesn't exist.

Meanwhile one F-35 costs over 80 million dollars and we're buying those as fast as Lockheed can build them.

g980 posted...

Lol whatever classist shit helps you sleep at night

Explaining that there's a threshold where money separates you from reality, and especially the reality of normal working people, is classist?

That's wild.

But if reality is classist, it makes sense. Facts have a liberal bias, after all.

Revnir posted...

I don't get it... what are they trying to prove? That the less money you have the more likely you are to be homeless?

Isn't that like... obvious?

No. Plenty of people say flat cash doesn't help the homeless because they'll just spend it on beer and drugs, and that you should only ever offer them food. This proves that theory wrong.

Inohira posted...

No. Plenty of people say flat cash doesn't help the homeless because they'll just spend it on beer and drugs, and that you should only ever offer them food. This proves that theory wrong.

This seems to be talking about a different class of homeless, so not really. Someone who has been couch surfing for two years and just has lacked the money to settle down is vastly different from someone who has been living on the streets for a decade. They're both homeless, but their circumstances are completely different. Depending on how you define it, you could probably break them down into many different categories, all who need different types of help, monetarily, mentally, and in other ways.

DnDer posted...

Explaining that there's a threshold where money separates you from reality, and especially the reality of normal working people, is classist?

Lol

DnDer posted...

Then, at that point, you become an asshole and a sociopath, completely disconnected from reality.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Which, when given to 50 people, totals $375000CAD / $275000USD.
That's the reason pilot programs like this, that show promise, never really expand beyond that: the funding for a mass-rollout just doesn't exist.

It 100% does exist.

Reducing the military budget by 0.5% would get the US Government enough to give the same $5500 payment to 1.6 MILLION people.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) counted around 582,000 Americans experiencing homelessness in 2022.

So don't feed me your bootstrap bullshit that there just isn't enough tax money for a program like this to exist.

supermichael11 posted...

This is a good study, it shows that homeless people are responsible with the money they are given. They don't spend on reckless things.

If they were reckless, they would spend on reckless things and run out of cash.

This. Homeless people are good with money.

bigblu89 posted...

Reducing the military budget by 0.5% would get the US Government enough to give the same $5500 payment to 1.6 MILLION people.

so... conscript the homeless?

Even a one-time $5500 windfall would help a LOT of homeless and at-risk-of-homelessness people stay afloat for up to a year.

Questionmarktarius posted...

so... conscript the homeless?

No you chucklehead.

But good job adding nothing to the conversation because you cant figure out a negative to helping people not be homeless anymore

So society is actually saving money with programs like this, but homeless people are icky so lets not help them!!!

Questionmarktarius posted...

so... conscript the homeless?

Where did he suggest that? And how does that answer his reply to your declaration that "money isn't there"?

Eramir posted...

So society is actually saving money with programs like this, but homeless people are icky so lets not help them!!!

The problem is you would have to sell the general populace on the idea of completely eliminating homeless shelters and replacing it with the direct cash payment system. Even people in support of fighting homelessness are going to be really uneasy at getting rid of an existing support system in exchange for a flat payment. That was basically Yang's entire platform and people tore him apart for it.

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Except if the argument is that this new approach saves money. It only saves money if the shelter isn't also still up and running and full. And if you're going to add a new parallel system to deal with homelessness it needs to explicitly have an off-ramp for when either it or the other service is going to be shut down. Otherwise you'll end up in a situation where nobody wants to take the political hit for saying they're eliminating a social service so you'll just end up with both forever, bleeding money and not helping as much as it could.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

"...but also this" is even harder sell.

Questionmarktarius posted...

"...but also this" is even harder sell.

Okay? So don't do anything?