A Bit of Cash Can Keep Someone Off the Streets For 2 Years or More (sciencemag.org) 618
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.
Very Basic Income (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:4, Informative)
This would require a ~50% increase in federal spending. America has tried many tax structures over the years, but nothing has ever sustained government revenue over 20% of GDP. We're currently spending 18% of GDP. There's no evidence that it's possible under any tax program to get revenue anywhere near that.
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Ok lets run the numbers
lets call it an even 300 million people in the country instead of 320
lets call the stipend a flat 10k instead of 12k or more proposed
that's 3x10^8(10^4)= 3x10^12
Or 3 trillion per year vs the entire current federal budget of approximately 3 trillion per year
that also assumes no overhead in running the program.
Re: (Score:3)
I've run the numbers [wordpress.com], including impacts on HUD-qualified households, on low-income households, on high-income households, on families, on single individuals, on single parents, and even on retirement [wordpress.com]. I even included a public aid system targeting children and naturalized Americans in low-income households, avoiding the known-unknown risk of handing out straight cash for welfare babies and gold-digging immigrants.
It's a trillion dollars cheaper than our current model, and completely remediates all defect
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The poverty line is sort of a red herring. It's a benchmark based on CPI inflation in our current economic system.
Let's talk about housing.
Imagine you could rent a 244sqft single-occupancy apartment for $300/month. Not big, not fancy, but it's something, right? It's cheap. They put pocket doors on the bathroom and bedroom, so you don't have to swing the door through this small-ish space. It's a place to live, it's got a kitchen, it's well-insulated so utilities are cheap, it's out of the rain, what'
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:5, Insightful)
SS and Medic* combined are over $1.9 T - there's just no way to replace them with basic income
You say that 3 times, but don't indicate why or how. SS *IS* a basic income. Why can't you pay the UBI rather than SS?
we'd need to pay seniors if we dropped those two programs.
Which is why most places with anything approaching UBI have single-payer health care. It'd be much better than what the US has now, and significantly cheaper. But we can't have cheaper. The conservatives object to a balanced budget with inexpensive and effective services.
Re: (Score:3)
A basic income is easily (and ideally) self-funding. You give everyone x% of the mean income, you tax everyone x% of their income, the math automatically works out because that's what averages do, and because of the distributions of incomes we have about 75% of people see a net gain from this (the mean is about the 75th percentile), and the vast majority of even those above the mean see a very small loss overall (in increased taxes minus their own basic income they receive), because a ridiculously huge chun
Re: (Score:2)
At that rate you could pay adults 18 and over $700 per month and children under the age of 18 $350 per month and break even assuming you eliminated those other programs. I'd suggest that all payments to children be deferred until they hit 18 otherwise you'll get some idiots acting li
Re: Very Basic Income (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm in favor of publicly funded police, fire fighters, an army, navy, marine and air force, a court system, a school system, a working sewer system, and well maintained roads as long as they are funded by a voluntary tax on anyone who supports funding them.
I only want to pay taxes for the things I need right now. I'm not part of a democracy where the majority votes for representatives who vote on bills or (lucky them) votes on referendums.
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So tolls then.
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Re: Very Basic Income (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. It's not the unions that decide what the road specs are, who the suppliers of the raw materials are (and their quality or lack thereof), or how much time is spent on preparation. The unions only supply the labour - and they are hired and directed by the contractor, not the union.
Politicians, lowest bidder, etc., have nothing to do with unions.
Re: (Score:3)
Welcome to New England, the land of that has about 10 different words for ice and snow. You're going to be resurfacing those roads, because water expands when it freezes.
Re: Very Basic Income (Score:5, Interesting)
Not quite. In the US, they bid on roads that are already speced. USDOT, the state DOT or local municipality write specs on what they want people to bid on. They then bid on them and build the road. There may be some issues with crap work, but 99% of the time it's the people who spec the road are trying to cut corners and save money on the project. Short-term thinking vs. long-term thinking.
In Germany, they spec the roads to last 25 years. They have a higher quality requirement of the raw materials and they build the road to outpace the expected traffic weight. They are also have very strict limits for weight restrictions, which are much less than the roads are built for.
In Michigan, they spec the roads for the 80% of expected weight. Up to 20% of the trucks on the road are expected to exceed what the road is built for. The specs are also based on a 10 year lifespan, of which they may only get 5 years. We use less concrete, have thinner underpavement, and lower quality standards for the raw materials. Consequently, it costs ~50% less to build a road in Michigan than it does in Germany, even if account for labor being more expensive there.
Re: Very Basic Income (Score:5, Insightful)
Because road wear is a function of the fourth power of the weight [pavementinteractive.org], the fees should be:
A 540-pound motorcycle pays $0.0013/mile
A 3,470-pound SUV pays $0.347/mile
An 80,000 pound semi trailer pays $4,252/mile
Re: Very Basic Income (Score:4, Interesting)
And now your average home costs $10 million, and a salad costs $100.
But hey, you paid half price for gas!
Yay!
My 80 year old house was built from bricks made in the kilns at the end of my street. It closed down 30 years ago because you could order in bricks interstate for 10cents less.
So yeah, a house will cost more, but likely 10%-20% more not twenty times as much. But for your 10%-20% increase, more local people will have jobs. Same goes for your salad.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You'll end right back with the same problem that led to 'socialised' roads in the first place since this tech will do nothing to fix that. Roads in the US were all privately built until the 1920s - it changed because it was a disaster.
Big business owner wants to be next to busy road, does not want to relocate - bribes roads builder to run road past his business. There were roads between nearby towns that took so many detours they were 6 to 8 times longer than the socialised roads that replaced them because
Re: Very Basic Income (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm in favor of publicly funded police, fire fighters, an army, navy, marine and air force, a court system, a school system, a working sewer system, and well maintained roads as long as they are funded by a voluntary tax on anyone who supports funding them.
It wound't work, those are all core services that are required by everyone. These are precisely the things our tax money should be used for.
I only want to pay taxes for the things I need right now.
Umm, ok. So right now you need police to prevent anarchy and lawlessness, and fire department to prevent your neighbor's burning house from throwing embers that catch your house on fire, and a military to keep others from invading, and a court system to handle civil and criminal and constitutional disputes (law is the foundation which modern society is built on), and you need roads so that food and supplies can get to you. The only thing on your list that you are not using is the school system.
Re: Very Basic Income (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Very Basic Income (Score:4, Insightful)
This year? Around $3800 overall so far. Years past anywhere between $800 and $7000. I kind of like the Universal Basic Income idea - the coming automation/no jobs nightmare needs a solution and I'd rather see things tried now and bugs worked out versus trying to do it while in the middle of the nightmare.
Re: Very Basic Income (Score:4, Insightful)
Finally someone gets it.
FFS, people, learn your history lessons. The most dangerous things, of all times, were people who had nothing to lose. 1789, 1917, in both cases you had starving people who had a good prospect to die anyway, so they could as well die trying to better their position.
And we have already left the point where it was economically feasible to pit people against each other to fight and struggle for jobs to push wages down. The problem isn't that we have 10 people and only work for 9 so play musical chairs at the race to the bottom to see who is left out in the rain. We're closer to having 5 jobs for 10 people in the unqualified/unskilled job bracket. And this is very, very dangerous. All it takes for a full blown riot here is someone to scream "follow me", who promises them wealth or death.
This problem needs a solution. And barring rounding up "unusable" people and mowing them down with gunfire giving them just enough to lose to keep them from uprising will be the only way to retain some semblance of social peace.
Re: (Score:3)
What are the negative side effects?
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:5, Insightful)
1. You're taking money away from people who earned it and giving to to people who didn't
As opposed to what? As fewer jobs become available, the alternatives are give a portion of it or have it all taken by force. Do you really want history to repeat itself?
2. What happens to people on basic income who have too many kids? Just keep paying them even more?
Most of the western world in the northern hemisphere is already below zero population growth. Countries have already experimented with paying people to pop out more kids, it doesn't work because people know that extra children are a financial burden in uncertain economic times. Basic income would not be high enough to offset that.
3. We already have enough illegals and freeloaders as it is. Paying half the country to do nothing will only make more of them.
Be happy that those illegals are doing jobs that you wouldn't do, like agricultural work. Do you really want to pay $5 for a tomato, because that's the alternative.
And what about all those seniors, who are "freeloading" because they aren't working. Japan already has 26% of their population over 65. Throw in those too young to work, and the infirm, and the unemployed, and that's pretty much half the population already. (total population 127 million, employed 64 million).
And the US is already worse. Only 151.5 million people work out of a total population of 319 million.
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:5, Informative)
Automatic elevators, which permanently destroyed the job where a person is inside the elevator and pushing a lever to make it go up or down.
No replacement job here, since any new repair work necessary for an elevator would now be rolled into the existing elevator technician job.
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He didn't actually say 'for humans' - there are even better examples if you expand beyond one species.
The plough-pulling ox is pretty much extinct, the cart-pulling horse now exists as a single novelty at a rate of less than one per major city. Even dogs. 200 years ago every dog had a job. There was even a breed who spent their lives running on a treadmill to turn the spit at restaurants and roast the meat evenly.
The only dogs with jobs today are pretty much police dogs and seeing-eye dogs.
But there's the c
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Unemployment is NOT lower. The US has a population of 319 million, and only 151 million are employed. That's less than half the work force - and worse than japan, which is 50/50.
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but that's the whole point of it. The reason something like the UBI will be needed by every country sooner or later is that in the foreseeable future the demand for low skill human labor will drop very close to zero as most menial jobs and quite many more complex jobs can be automated.
No, not always. As explained above, we're headed toa future were most simple jobs are done by machines. This means these things are still produced, they're just not produced by human workers.
Very simply: because we recognize that having everyone be fully employed in the future is an impossibility, one's freedom to live should not be defined by work. This doesn't mean work is not respectable, and many people will probably be working part time still, and contribute to a number of things via which they can get their sense of achievement.
But again, since there will be massses of people for whom work simply does not exist in the coming decades, UBI is a necessity. It's not like these people can somehow all be compelled to work when the demand of human labor required will be far below the amount of people on the planet. 'Climbing up the ladder' is not something that everyone CAN do, so those people must be provided for and UBI-like systems look like the most sensible way to achieve this.
The people who have the intellectual capabilities to educate themselves for a job they can actually do will still be motivated, because most people want a better/higher standard of living. We have quite extensive unemployment benefits here in Finland, yet people still look for work instead of just living on the benefits, because even though the difference between a low wage job and being on the benefits might not be more than a few hundred euros that few hundred euros more in disposable income is a significant improvement in one's standard of living.
Throwing money at the poor doesn't make them less poor?
Overall, it seems to me that a great deal of people who oppose the idea of UBI do not understand the economic realities especially western post-industrialized economies are facing in the very near future. The whole concept of employment will change drastically as less and less humans are needed for companies and services to operate. This means we have to change our ideas about the role of work in everyday life, because the technological advances that are rushing us towards this age are already happening and they cannot be stopped.
Our economies have adapted to similar major shifts before: the cessation of slave labor, the industrial revolution, etc. and we'll adapt again, and the history will likely look back at the guys who thought UBI was the end of the world as akin to those who said the ending of slavery would cause major economic meltdowns.
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Well, when I used 'decades' I basically mean within this century. Like, sure, some things might take a lot of time, but many changes I suspect will happen a lot sooner than people expect. I mean, we can already see that for example the driverless cars are quite close, and that change alone will start to affect the employment of a great deal of people relatively soon, and bef
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like communism? You don't have a clue as to what you're talking about. Socialism is not communism.
Also, funding for helping people to get training and jobs is no longer a solution. We already are in a downward spiral where people are paying ever more money to get ever more education for ever fewer jobs. As automation destroys more jobs, there's simply not going to be enough jobs to go around. Job training won't fix that.
Training also won't help people get jobs when their handicaps would "impose an undue burden on the employer." Or when the employer can get someone younger. Most "job training programs" are make-work programs that provide jobs to the trainers, and temporarily reduce the official unemployment rate because people in training aren't counted as unemployed.
In the past it didn't really matter, because after each downturn people could find jobs, even if they had nothing to do with their "training." That's no longer the case because (1) economic recoveries are now long, drawn-out affairs that leave many people permanently employed as whole sectors disappear, and (2) jobless recoveries (the term was first used in 1935) are now a fact of life.
Have you taken into account all the negative effects of NOT having a basic income? Including that historically, when enough people get desperate, they take what they need anyway rather than just conveniently crawl into a hole and die?
In other words, whatever the cost, it's probably still cheaper than a revolution.
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:4, Interesting)
... they want to make us have to work.
And the problem with that is??????
Through technology, Republicans are destroying jobs. They're going to leave most of humanity starving and homeless.
Funny; at almost every technology company I've ever worked at, the CEO or one of the other executives has taken it upon themselves to send an email to all employees urging them to vote for the Democratic candidate.
I saved the ones I received from Steve Jobs, while working at Apple.
These same companies tend to donate to the specific Democratic campaign or party in general as well, to the limits allowed by law.
Personally, I'd happily work for free to build the technology to put every man, woman, and child on the planet out of work. In fact, I currently do.
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Re:Very Basic Income (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact I'm doing a govt contract right now, and the only political messages we get say that as govt workers we must remain neutral in the process. No-one is permitted to show any preference for any political party because the process has to be as impartial as possible.
The American system seems so corrupt by comparison.
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Personally, I'd happily work for free to build the technology to put every man, woman, and child on the planet out of work. In fact, I currently do.
You work for free? Do you realize that not everyone has that option?
I work on large numbers of projects. The only people who don't have that option are those that have to work 14+ hours a day just to subsist. If you work any less than that, you tend to have at least 6 hours discretionary time on weekdays, and 14 on weekends. That's 44 hours a week, and if you are working 40 hours a week (the standard work week), then you have the time.
Not my fault if you use that time for television, video games, etc., rather than on long term projects to benefit humanity. I don't waste
Re: Very Basic Income (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:4, Insightful)
Green card holders are permanent residents.
They also pay taxes. So why shouldn't they get the same benefits?
In most countries, permanent residents get basically the same rights as citizens, including the right to vote. Only the US seems ass backwards.
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:5, Informative)
How do permanent residents not have a buy in? We are not H1B's. I pay the same taxes as you, I pay in to SSI, I contribute to all local, state and federal taxes. I own a house here with my wife (who was born in the USA) and child. I own two cars. I hunt. I support local wildlife habitats. I am paying in to a 401K and IRA in addition to personal investments. I pay for goods and services here. I plan to retire here, I have just not gotten around to naturalizing. How is that not buying in?
Citizenship is not some automagical status that makes you a productive member of society; it yields you some additional advantages that permanent residents do not get (yet we pay for it too :)) Being a citizen does not imply you can never take your crap and go elsewhere, US citizens do it all the time, they live aboard, they give up their citizenship and just like citizens if I decide to move back to my country of birth I still have to file US income tax statements even if I have not earned in the fiscal year inside US borders of protectorates, the only way around that is renouncing my permanent residence just like a citizen would have to.
Welcome to the wonderful world of arbitrary designations :)
Spare $1,500/month for new immigrant won't work? (Score:3)
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
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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...
It's precisely the same logic for either (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re: Very Basic Income (Score:4, Insightful)
"So you openly profess to being too lazy to "go all the way" with the naturalization process, no?"
There's lots of valid reasons to not naturalize that don't involve laziness. One of them might be to not turn into an asshat like you.
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:5, Informative)
I've voted in Swedish elections several times as a permanent resident.
You also might be interested to know that you do not have to become a US citizen to serve in the US armed forces--permanent residents of the US are also eligible [military.com].
I'd suggest you lose your love of circular logic first, though.
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So you openly profess to being an "economic citizen", no?
So you openly profess to being too lazy to "go all the way" with the naturalization process, no?
Actual US citizens do the following:
You make an ASSumption and are to cowardly to reply with an actual account. No, I said I have not gotten around to naturalizing, it has nothing to do with laziness, it has got to do with not reserving money to pay for it (it is expensive), instead I direct that money towards paying down debt. Since my permanent residence card is up for renewal again in 2022, I will naturalize about 18 months before hand, which is actually the point where all my debt is virtually gone.
- vote in elections and other public matters (well, we should vote...)
- hold political office and other positions that require "citizenship" as a prerequisite
- serve jury duty (we generally hate it but we do it rather than go to jail for not doing it)
To your point "well you should vote". Ye
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:5, Informative)
I am a green card holder and have been living here for almost 17 years, I pay same taxes as you, I pay in to SSI and I contribute a hell of a lot of money to the economy. I should just suck it up and naturalize, it is not like I cannot keep my current citizenship in addition to obtaining US. The difference between citizenship and permanent residence is that you have taxation with representation, I however do not, but it is within my power to resolve that.
Tes
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:5, Insightful)
Money for nothing teaches people to slack.
Lack of opportunity teaches people to slack. Money is irrelevant to whether people slack. That you object to helping people doesn't mean you have to lie about it too.
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Re:Very Basic Income (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:5, Insightful)
You're talking about handing money to someone who has already been refused by family and friends
You are so privileged you can't even conceive of a world where friends and family might decline to give money because they have none to give. Do you want to give a moral test to everyone who receives government money? Like the drug tests, they should start with elected officials.
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:4, Interesting)
I've known homeless people, and they were indeed refused support by their family. Family in this case was dad, who was a ornery SOB and disowned his son for going to university instead of working on the farm. Nice.
The son was a slightly geeky maths student. He screwed up some paperwork and didn't get any housing allocated by the university one term. He slept on a mate's floor while trying to sort it out. Then he felt the mate might be getting fed up with him, so he lied and pretended he had somewhere.
Then he started sleeping during the day in the computer lab (how I met him) and just wandering around at night. This didn't do his grades much good, and he dropped off the course.
Once you've been sleeping rough for a very short space of time your mental health nosedives. Asking anyone for help becomes very hard - it's a challenge just keeping basically clean and fed. Note that he had some money (unemployment benefit), just nowhere to live. He could afford to eat, but without access to a kitchen he either ate only cold food, or had to buy (relatively expensive) take-away food. As a single young male you are not on the top of the queue to be housed by the state.
In the end he escaped, and last I met him he had a job, house and girlfriend. But I've seen how someone can become homeless, it doesn't take much, and once it begins it's very hard to stop.
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd really rather do something ethically meaningful rather than my current engineering job which is probably gray at best. Sadly most alternatives are not improvements and I need a decent salary to meet expenses and be able to retire at some point. Would I slack some if money wasn't an issue? Probably for a bit, but after awhile I think I'd get bored. I'd rather be doing something.
The seems to be the point that opponents to basic income can never get through their heads. People that are slackers are going to slack no matter whether they have basic income or not. A basic income actually gives people with ideas a huge advantage. I wonder how many people out there with great ideas have never been able to peruse them because it would mean they would starve while they are developing their ideas.
Re:Very Basic Income (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel like there's a huge problem with projection in the anti-UBI crowd. If I had a basic income, I'd go back to school. I'd do things that were more risky. I'd read more, study more, create more.
My partner is doing her PhD right now. She can do it without worrying about money because *I* work. That's the power of getting money for nothing.
But honestly, if you want to live by the ocean and barely scrape by on a UBI, I'm not actually going to argue with that. We've only got this one life to live. If I had the power, I'd bequeath everyone the life of luxury and relaxation that they want.
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You think kids born into rich families are all useless slackers? No, the money they get for nothing allows them to take risks and pursue opportunities without fear -- which causes them to contribute a lot more to the economy on average down the road than the kids who had to work for every cent.
I believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
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;)
Re:I believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
I was taught to never give cash to someone who is hungry, in my town, nine times out of ten it's for booze and smokes.
We offered food to someone who said they NEEDED money for food. They rejected the kindness with cursing.
Giving a place to stay for the homeless, yes, that is much safer.
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How would they know whether you had spit in it first?
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Well, for one, it was not from McDonald's... ;)
And it was still in it's store bought package.
Re:I believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
We offered food to someone who said they NEEDED money for food. They rejected the kindness with cursing.
We've all read that anecdote before. I once offered a friend a bite of my sandwich because it was really good, but he said he didn't like turkey. I learned my lesson, and now I never offer to let my friends taste my food. Problem solved!
Or maybe we should find what works for a range of situations and apply the solution that fits best in that moment? Instead of handing out bags of cash, perhaps start with an interview with a social worker trained for this, and directly pay their rent/mortgage/car/bills. Work with local grocery stores to buy groceries. It ain't rocket science.
Giving a place to stay for the homeless, yes, that is much safer.
The point is to help people avoid becoming homeless in the first place--and save money to boot.
Re: (Score:3)
Homeless shelters have been in the news lately because they are far from safe. Kids are developing anemia because they are so drained by bedbugs. And it's not just kids either. There are also numerous other complications [asm.org].
And shelters are dangerous [alternet.org].
Once someone gets that low, how does anyone expect them to get back on their feet? Far better to prevent it in the first place. The people who rant on about how it's somehow wrong better hope that karma doesn't bite their ignorant asses.
Problem is government will not prevent (Score:3)
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.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
We offered food to someone who said they NEEDED money for food. They rejected the kindness with cursing.
We have daily beggars that we've pretty much made a sport of trying to circumvent. It's difficult to be a rock every day, and they eventually wear you down into some ill-advised stray-feeding.
Our running joke is that if one of them holds up a sign that says I need a drink! he gets a twenty.
We have a one-legged gal who Sharpied On My Last Leg as her cardboard plea.
Re:I believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
In most cases, I'm not willing to give them friendship or love, so I give them a bit of cash so at least they can get a little bit of happiness (or deaden the pain, as it may be).
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This is why I wish to truly help them and not contribute to an addiction.
Re:I believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
By turning a cold shoulder to them, you are not helping them.
Re:I believe it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
You were brought up wrong. And where do you get "nine out of ten"? Did you do a study of people asking for money on the street?
Re:I believe it (Score:4, Informative)
The best way to get money for booze, smokes, or drugs is to "claim hunger". I have seen it far too often.
This is why I will always offer food, but not CASH. I am not being evil, but careful.
I should have said most of the time instead of 9 out of 10. That was a poor choice of words.
My information comes from my own experience and from a non-profit group that focused on helping people on the street, with years of experience doing so.
Re:I believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Whereas if I choose to give money to somebody begging I couldn't care less what they spend it on.
That's how "giving" works. The second it leaves my hand it is NO LONGER MY MONEY. It's NOT My property anymore and it's NOT my business.
But then, I'm not a sanctimonious asshole.
Re: (Score:3)
I've witnessed people giving food to beggars many times. They've all accepted it with thanks. Your example seems to be an outlier.
Re: (Score:2)
It's very very difficult to overcome the western idea that "you've got to have something to trade" in this situation - people don't see trading their stuff (tax dollars) for lack of destitution as "getting something" - that is - paying less for something in the long run is rarely seen as a "something" to get. Or alternatively, paying a little for something now rather than a lot for it later is also not seen as as a good "trade".
There's also the problem that even for people who do think that trading a littl
Re:I believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Or investing in infrastructure or education: even though the benefits are well documented, they're mostly invisible. Tanks and police are something you can see.
Re:I believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
It can cost between 20K and 60K to put someone in prison.
Thats per inmate, per year.
I wonder how much money you could save by doing this:
"This is your first offence. We'll pay you half of what it costs to keep you in prison so you can feed yourself, pay rent, look for work or keep your job. You also have to wear this GPS ankle bracelet and check in with us every few weeks to prove you're not a fuck-up. Also you need to get a job if you're able. Otherwise you're going to prison."
Re: (Score:3)
This seems obvious (Score:2)
Pretty much everyone normal has had a phase in their life where they had unexpected expenses combined with an income shortfall and not enough assets to raise any cash (human or financial assets).
I think in many cases, especially when you're young, and if its a short-term issue we all manage to squeak by, somehow without becoming homeless or destitute. But I know I can remember a couple of occasions where it was obvious to me that if one more thing happened, I would be fucked.
The problem with bailing everyo
Re: (Score:2)
I think everyone can say in one form or another (depending on your beliefs) that but by the Grace of God, we were only one more 'thing' away from loosing it all, and at the last minute we got back on our feet. Some later, possibly did loose it all, but how many "near misses" have we had we did not even know of...
Re:This seems obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
A Tale of Two Types (Score:2)
There is a big, but often hard to detect difference between giving someone a handout and helping them to recover from a crisis.
It all depends on the person. Hard times can hit even the most responsible people (they need help). Other people are the definition of irresponsible, becoming parasites if enabled by others (taking handouts). There needs to be ways to determine what kind of person is requesting help, and act accordingly.
Most Americans are just a paycheck away from financial disaster, with no savings
Re:A Tale of Two Types (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more a racial issue than a financial one.
Re: (Score:2)
A good question.
If it's someone staring me in the face, it's not hard to see if they are starving... if they accept an offer to go to the grocery store, they are obviously not looking only for booze.
If it's a matter of tax dollars being used, that gets hard. Government makes simple things confusing. Plus then it's an abstraction as I do not see a face, only a policy.
A very "someone" (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
This is like adding money into a responsible persons emergency savings account.
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.
This is like giving an alcoholic a gift card to the corner liquor store.
Re: (Score:3)
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 i
Re:A very "someone" (Score:5, Informative)
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.
$1000? (Score:2)
Maybe I'm oversimplifying but it seems to me there are mostly 3 basic reasons why people are homeless.
1) Fundamentally stable person who had a bad life emergency situation that wasn't their fault but they were unprepared, followed by a lack of opportunity to recover (e.g. laid off or bad health issues) (would do the right thing with $1000 given the opportunity, but $1000 would not be nearly enough to make a real difference)
2) Mentally disabled (because society pushes many out on the streets instead of provi
Re: (Score:2)
It seems that by and large, a one time $1000 boost will only help a person in a very specific one-time minor predicament.
- Major medical bills eat $1000 bills for breakfast
- The mortgage / rent always comes the following month.. and the following month
- A true crisis is usually not over a matter of $1000, but several contributing factors.
Re: (Score:3)
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 a
Re:$1000? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
FTA: (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
What keeps them from drinking it away? (Score:2)
One can't argue with the economics, but it seems to me that the part left out is that said homeless person will take the two grand and find a place to live. Besides, say, buying alcohol or drugs.
On the other hand, if a significant enough percentage of homeless do use the money wisely, maybe the program is still an overall win.
But then, what of the people who aspire to be homeless so they can get the handout?
How to you recognize almost-homeless (Score:2)
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. Recipients need to be able to demonstrate consistent future income, and the amount given needs to actually cover their housing expenses for the month.
The primary difficulty (as the article mentions) is recognizing people who are about to become homeless who could be helped by this.
Not all homelessness is due to financial ruin (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Welfare as lump-sum (Score:2, Interesting)
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 abo
Australian Observer (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
In other news (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
1000 bucks can either buy a palace or a box under the bridge. It all depends on where you live.
Re: (Score:2)
That's about a dozen doses of meth.
So they can't round it down from $83.33? Weasels - nickle and dime you on everything ...
Re: (Score:3)
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
Re: (Score:2)
If it were only subsistence you're after (Score:2)
Even most die-hard Republicans are not heartless and don't really want people to starve in the street.
I doubt you'd have much of a fight in Congress if the solution to the foodstamp program's problems was to do something like provide free subsistence foodstuffs to anyone who asked where "free subsistence foodstuffs" would be a bag of rice and a bag of beans. All the daily calories met. Perhaps we enrich with some vitamins so that the RDA doses are met.
In such a program no one would ever have to go hungry; i
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds a lot like the St. Vincent de Paul society. http://www.svdpusa.org/ [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