As someone who is nearing 2,000 days of two stints of homelessness since 2017, I can offer feedback that such an amount would help to alleviate basic survival pressures.
But, money will not solve any root cause issues. I've been unhoused and out of work for so long that any recovery back to a normal life has become exceedingly unlikely. I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke, nor do I do illicit drugs nor prescriptions. My mental state -- stressed in survival mode -- is very much situational, yet there are underlying factors that have led to a state of permanent dysfunction and reluctance to rebuild.
In addition to food stamps, I've survived on help from lifelong/long term friends and strangers (incl'g from kind souls on hn, on a few occasions, even). One kind stranger at the local coffee shop even tried gifting me
a new MBP/M2/24GB/1TB a few months ago, but my focus is gone and I was unhoused, still being criminally targeted, so I returned the laptop in like new condition to him a week later. (The side reports regarding systemic/criminal abuse against at-risk folks is a separate but related matter.)
These initiatives matter, of course. I'd gladly make use of such money. But, IMO, more important is to focus on root causes at the relevant time -- i.e. in public school settings when unchecked peer abuse occurs, as one example. Such abuse can grow into an irreparable state of dysfunction and life breakdown.
I was functionally homeless for 9 years. Food stamps in America are inconvenient as they aren't accepted everywhere, come with strings attached as to purposes, are a way for others to other their users, require onerous paperwork and blasé treatment like a criminal, and are most often insufficient, especially in big cities and Southern states.
Direct cash aid is little-to-nonexistent because of the cynical and discriminatory presumptions "people should work (even if they're disabled)" and "they'll just buy booze and drugs with it".
I am permanently traumatized by many sounds, including tires crunching on pavement, vehicles passing by, loud boom boom music from trucks, and the presence of cell phone cameras in public.
I am also traumatized by any presence of strangers when my bicycle has broken down, and due to T and H, I cannot be in quiet areas. I was diagnosed with a physical disability but couldnt follow thru on appointments for an untreatable condition while homeless.
I have persistent suicidal ideation. The stress has become enormous lately and today has been absolutely awful. I am shaking and angry, and become particularly stressed during rainfall.
I am outside of a closed starbucks attempting a hack repair on my bicycle brake, awaiting a time to commute without rain.
The long term effects of homelessless have taken a tremendous toll on my mental health and has put me in a state of constant stress and anxiety. I have deteriorated mentally over the years, especially lately. I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
> still being criminally targeted, so I returned the laptop in like new condition to him a week later. (The side reports regarding systemic/criminal abuse against at-risk folks is a separate but related matter.)
Many "progressives" like to claim that punishing criminals is counterproductive, and the real solution to address crime is to fix the poverty, the "root cause". In reality, the opposite is true: crime is one of the major root causes that prevents honest people from improving their financial situation.
There is already plenty of evidence of how poverty cripples cognitive capabilities and prevents long-term planning. Getting a leg up and slightly more financial security gives people a longer time horizon to plan forward. Well-off people who try living "in poverty" for short period don't experience the stress like people living in actual poverty and stress and can't understand how bad it is.
The first path out of poverty is giving people some money without strings attached.
Basically, the key factor here appears to not only be money, but an assigned “Miracle Friend” who has recurring check-ins with the individual. The grantees of the funding were all individuals who kept up recurring checkins for some period of time (without being disclosed that this would result in receiving any money).
Google says avg American makes ~$60k/yr and spends ~$600/yr on drinking. 2% of 60k is 1200. So they'd need to be spending as much on weed/cigs/hard drugs as they do on alcohol.
if you have $50 and it wont make a difference in getting what you actually need, then fast food and fast thrills are what it will be spent on
if you have $750 or some other threshold, you can try to make a difference to get out of it
its like “give a man a fish” versus “sign up for fishing classes, get books, equipment and train so you’ll never have to be in the situation ever again”
I wonder - I only get a couple generics that literally cost less than $1 to get from my local pharmacy for some reason, but I wonder how much I'm paying in healthcare premiums (particularly employer premiums) that go towards drugs - it's probably much greater than 2% of my income indeed. Wegovy is like $1500/month and selling like gangbusters as an example.
For the recreational stuff, I'd rather make/grow my own, so in one sense they're free, but in the actual sense, they're probably quite expensive once you factor in the equipment; just like any other hobby I suppose. Hell, keeping hives to get honey to make into mead is quite the long way around.
I bet that average homeless person does too. 2% seems ridiculously low. $15 a month total on drugs? That only makes sense for someone who does no opioids, no stimulants, and just smokes 1 pack of cigs and has a single beer across an entire month.
The top federal income tax rate was 91 percent in 1950 and 1951, and between 1954 and 1959. In 1952 and 1953, the top federal income tax rate was 92 percent. (USA)
We need to go back to this. Wealth inequality is damaging society far more than ever. From Onlyfans to Bitcoins Scams, social media platforms has only exacerbated the issue. Will the pendulum swing back to morality and just cause away from lawlessness and perversion? Is there a singular root cause for this behavior? Gen Z maybe the last hope.
No, we don't need to go back to this because it simply doesn't work.
In my country, the top rate of 50% sets in around 70K of income. The top rate is hated so much that it actively curtails people's ambitions. People feel its pointless to level up beyond this point. They won't fight to reach bonus targets because the bonus is cut in half. If they continue to grow in income, many consider working a day less per week, as supplemental income becomes largely useless.
A 92% tax rate, at whatever threshold you set it, means anything you do beyond that point has no point at all.
Further, for organizations to richly reward top leaders, which whilst not popular is very much needed, how do you figure they pay them a high net income? Just do up the gross costs by a factor 10?
Finally, surely you realize true wealth doesn't come from labor?
>The top federal income tax rate was 91 percent in 1950 and 1951, and between 1954 and 1959. In 1952 and 1953, the top federal income tax rate was 92 percent. (USA)
>We need to go back to this.
There were so many deductions and tax breaks back then that, to a first approximation, no one paid anywhere close to that. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 removed most of those deductions as part of the collapsing of tax brackets.
The headline as written should surprise no-one. Anyone receiving free money would probably have their life improved along some dimension, even if it just means they're not doing as many dangerous things to get money to buy more drugs. The implicit assumption seems to be that giving homeless people money to improve their lives is inherently a moral good.
Unlike many homeless advocates, I don't think it is a given that taking money by force from productive hardworking people and giving it to mentally ill drug addicts is inherently moral or good for long term societal stability.
I think a lot of productive hardworking people's money has been spent on propaganda whose sole intention is to ensure that people equate homeless people to "mentally ill drug addicts" rather than, say, "private equity real estate buyup refugees"
Read the article, or read the recent UCSF study on homelessness[0]. The data suggest that mental illness and drug addiction are both symptoms of, or exacerbated by, homelessness, not causes of it.
Please don’t argue with me about this here without citing the available data.
“It may not be earth-shattering that providing money is going to help meet basic needs, but I do think it dispels this myth that people will use money for illicit purposes,” Henwood said. “We weren’t finding that in the study.”
> taking money by force from productive hardworking people and giving it to mentally ill drug addicts
Taxing is not immoral, and it's not just given to mentally ill drug addicts. That's a bad and wrong frame. You almost make it sound like you would cheer when it is given to the mentally ill non-users, or to mentally healthy addicts.
But that's not really your point, is it? Just say: "I don't want to pay taxes." The implication of course is: you don't care about the state, and the help it offers others. Usually that principle lasts until you get in trouble, or can do a profit from government funds.
The fact that you call all homeless people "mentally ill drug addicts" is very telling. Do some basic research. I hope you find some empathy in your heart.
Why ask those people how they ended up this way, and help strategically based on each person's individual needs, while allowing them to feel useful by contributing back to society, when we can just throw money at them. It's easier to throw money at them. I'm sure this will work great, and not become another outlet for corruption.
Of course it did. The question or debate is not if unconditional money helps, but if it's better than alternatives which may be cheaper, such as food credits. Even middle class people would benefit, like $750 to buy groceries. Inflation obviously will erode some of this new purchasing power.
A lot of the debate is very sincerely arguing that it doesn't actually help, so making it clear that it really actually does is important to shut down some of the ignorance:
“It may not be earth-shattering that providing money is going to help meet basic needs, but I do think it dispels this myth that people will use money for illicit purposes,” Henwood said. “We weren’t finding that in the study.”
The government is very good at giving people money. It's less good at adjudicating whether people require that money. Replacing every government assistance program with direct, unconditional cash transfers would almost certainly be cheaper than the bureaucracy that must be maintained to ensure only "deserving" people get assistance.
The point is not that it helped, the point is that they used it to exit homelessness. This is important because of the pervasive and empirically incorrect assertion that people do not have housing because they simply choose not to.
"Food credits" are an expensive and paternalistic Big Government approach to the problem. Is the idea that poor people don't know they need to buy food? Or that the government knows what you should be eating better than you do? SNAP spends something like $0.15 of every dollar on administrative and has complicated rules.
I am happy for Las Angeles to perform a widespread trial of this kind of initiative. Attract people to Southern California that might be homeless elsewhere, help them get on their feet via $750/person/month, then they will get off the subsidy and contribute back to the community!
If it works I will encourage a similar system in my hometown. If it does not work then I'm glad we did a trial run first.
Note: I'm paywalled from reading the article, how many people did they give the money to and how long was it?
This is a hilariously naive and silly take because SF did exactly this and continues to do so. Spoiler alert, they have massively exacerbated their homeless problems and very few are being reintegrated back into society.
[+] [-] nshkr|2 years ago|reply
But, money will not solve any root cause issues. I've been unhoused and out of work for so long that any recovery back to a normal life has become exceedingly unlikely. I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke, nor do I do illicit drugs nor prescriptions. My mental state -- stressed in survival mode -- is very much situational, yet there are underlying factors that have led to a state of permanent dysfunction and reluctance to rebuild.
In addition to food stamps, I've survived on help from lifelong/long term friends and strangers (incl'g from kind souls on hn, on a few occasions, even). One kind stranger at the local coffee shop even tried gifting me a new MBP/M2/24GB/1TB a few months ago, but my focus is gone and I was unhoused, still being criminally targeted, so I returned the laptop in like new condition to him a week later. (The side reports regarding systemic/criminal abuse against at-risk folks is a separate but related matter.)
These initiatives matter, of course. I'd gladly make use of such money. But, IMO, more important is to focus on root causes at the relevant time -- i.e. in public school settings when unchecked peer abuse occurs, as one example. Such abuse can grow into an irreparable state of dysfunction and life breakdown.
hth
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|2 years ago|reply
With those taken care of, tackling the other problems becomes easier. Not easy, but easier.
[+] [-] 1letterunixname|2 years ago|reply
Direct cash aid is little-to-nonexistent because of the cynical and discriminatory presumptions "people should work (even if they're disabled)" and "they'll just buy booze and drugs with it".
[+] [-] nshkr|2 years ago|reply
I am permanently traumatized by many sounds, including tires crunching on pavement, vehicles passing by, loud boom boom music from trucks, and the presence of cell phone cameras in public.
I am also traumatized by any presence of strangers when my bicycle has broken down, and due to T and H, I cannot be in quiet areas. I was diagnosed with a physical disability but couldnt follow thru on appointments for an untreatable condition while homeless.
I have persistent suicidal ideation. The stress has become enormous lately and today has been absolutely awful. I am shaking and angry, and become particularly stressed during rainfall.
I am outside of a closed starbucks attempting a hack repair on my bicycle brake, awaiting a time to commute without rain.
The long term effects of homelessless have taken a tremendous toll on my mental health and has put me in a state of constant stress and anxiety. I have deteriorated mentally over the years, especially lately. I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
I do not want any help.
Aloha.
[+] [-] meowtimemania|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pseudalopex|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dooopdoop|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Georgelemental|2 years ago|reply
Many "progressives" like to claim that punishing criminals is counterproductive, and the real solution to address crime is to fix the poverty, the "root cause". In reality, the opposite is true: crime is one of the major root causes that prevents honest people from improving their financial situation.
[+] [-] nabla9|2 years ago|reply
Here is the interim report of the randomized controlled trial: https://dworakpeck.usc.edu/sites/default/files/2023-12/Mirac...
There is already plenty of evidence of how poverty cripples cognitive capabilities and prevents long-term planning. Getting a leg up and slightly more financial security gives people a longer time horizon to plan forward. Well-off people who try living "in poverty" for short period don't experience the stress like people living in actual poverty and stress and can't understand how bad it is.
The first path out of poverty is giving people some money without strings attached.
On the psychology of poverty https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1232491
Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1238041
[+] [-] nrp|2 years ago|reply
Basically, the key factor here appears to not only be money, but an assigned “Miracle Friend” who has recurring check-ins with the individual. The grantees of the funding were all individuals who kept up recurring checkins for some period of time (without being disclosed that this would result in receiving any money).
[+] [-] datadrivenangel|2 years ago|reply
I'm pretty sure that the average American spends more than 2% of their income on drugs.
[+] [-] brvsft|2 years ago|reply
> > Oh uhhh... like $15.
> Okay, thanks. I am writing that down in my report. Now it is a fact.
[+] [-] SeanAnderson|2 years ago|reply
I think it's close, but unlikely?
[+] [-] yieldcrv|2 years ago|reply
if you have $50 and it wont make a difference in getting what you actually need, then fast food and fast thrills are what it will be spent on
if you have $750 or some other threshold, you can try to make a difference to get out of it
its like “give a man a fish” versus “sign up for fishing classes, get books, equipment and train so you’ll never have to be in the situation ever again”
[+] [-] hotpotamus|2 years ago|reply
For the recreational stuff, I'd rather make/grow my own, so in one sense they're free, but in the actual sense, they're probably quite expensive once you factor in the equipment; just like any other hobby I suppose. Hell, keeping hives to get honey to make into mead is quite the long way around.
[+] [-] SV_BubbleTime|2 years ago|reply
Do you think the average American would self-report more?
[+] [-] tracedddd|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] __blockcipher__|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ecommerceguy|2 years ago|reply
We need to go back to this. Wealth inequality is damaging society far more than ever. From Onlyfans to Bitcoins Scams, social media platforms has only exacerbated the issue. Will the pendulum swing back to morality and just cause away from lawlessness and perversion? Is there a singular root cause for this behavior? Gen Z maybe the last hope.
[+] [-] iteratethis|2 years ago|reply
In my country, the top rate of 50% sets in around 70K of income. The top rate is hated so much that it actively curtails people's ambitions. People feel its pointless to level up beyond this point. They won't fight to reach bonus targets because the bonus is cut in half. If they continue to grow in income, many consider working a day less per week, as supplemental income becomes largely useless.
A 92% tax rate, at whatever threshold you set it, means anything you do beyond that point has no point at all.
Further, for organizations to richly reward top leaders, which whilst not popular is very much needed, how do you figure they pay them a high net income? Just do up the gross costs by a factor 10?
Finally, surely you realize true wealth doesn't come from labor?
[+] [-] TMWNN|2 years ago|reply
>We need to go back to this.
There were so many deductions and tax breaks back then that, to a first approximation, no one paid anywhere close to that. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 removed most of those deductions as part of the collapsing of tax brackets.
[+] [-] buzzert|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ciguy|2 years ago|reply
Unlike many homeless advocates, I don't think it is a given that taking money by force from productive hardworking people and giving it to mentally ill drug addicts is inherently moral or good for long term societal stability.
[+] [-] advael|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbgerring|2 years ago|reply
Please don’t argue with me about this here without citing the available data.
0. https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/our-impact/our-studies/califor...
[+] [-] cwillu|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tgv|2 years ago|reply
Taxing is not immoral, and it's not just given to mentally ill drug addicts. That's a bad and wrong frame. You almost make it sound like you would cheer when it is given to the mentally ill non-users, or to mentally healthy addicts.
But that's not really your point, is it? Just say: "I don't want to pay taxes." The implication of course is: you don't care about the state, and the help it offers others. Usually that principle lasts until you get in trouble, or can do a profit from government funds.
[+] [-] thinkingtoilet|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] everfree|2 years ago|reply
Unless - do you believe we shouldn’t aid ill people at all?
[+] [-] sullivantrevor|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MivLives|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dolototo|2 years ago|reply
On the other side even the egoistic view would give homeless people money just to have them of streets.
[+] [-] mitchbob|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 3cats-in-a-coat|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulpauper|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cwillu|2 years ago|reply
“It may not be earth-shattering that providing money is going to help meet basic needs, but I do think it dispels this myth that people will use money for illicit purposes,” Henwood said. “We weren’t finding that in the study.”
[+] [-] zrail|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbgerring|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TriangleEdge|2 years ago|reply
Edit: Let's say there's an expiry function on the credits. Something like you get to keep 50% of the credits if they rollover.
[+] [-] narcindin|2 years ago|reply
If it works I will encourage a similar system in my hometown. If it does not work then I'm glad we did a trial run first.
Note: I'm paywalled from reading the article, how many people did they give the money to and how long was it?
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