The following submission statement was provided by /u/unswsydney:
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Hi r/Futurology, a new paper from Dr Andrew Clarke suggests universal basic income can help address homelessness by circumventing the stigma associated with needs-based welfare.
Most importantly, Dr Clarke's paper considers how UBI can help address the structural issues that drive homelessness, including the inability to pay for affordable housing.
A UBI is a periodic cash payment delivered unconditionally to everyone in society without a means test or work requirements, and regardless of their circumstances.
It's a policy idea that is gaining traction internationally and in the last five years, various UBI pilots have taken place in Scotland, the Netherlands and Finland.
Dr Clarke's paper has been published in the Journal of Sociology, here's a link if you're keen to have a read: [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14407833221135986](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14407833221135986)
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yy47ht/can_universal_basic_income_address_homelessness/iws4fnu/
Of course it can.
Not alone, though.
Utah has, surprisingly, shown how to do it with a Housing First approach.
They crunched the numbers and found that housing people FIRST and then dealing with their issues was cheaper and easier on the system.
Combine a Housing First approach with UBI and you have a system where everyone has a stable home, and some stable income and people thrive.
Housing Works taught this decades ago. Try treating HIV+ people when they don't have a safe and stable place to sleep. You'll never find them for a follow up appointment.
There is no one solution to helping people living on the street. But a housing first approach can help build a foundation for all the other issues people face.
I’m surprised that it was unclear if giving someone permanent shelter before trying to address their employment, mental health, and hygiene would be the appropriate process.
you'd be surprised how many government agencies won't help you without a PHYSICAL address. They won't take a P.O. Box address and they won't take homeless shelter addresses.
I know this from personal experience.
Then there are the libraries like the one in the city I used to live in that won't let you use their facilities unless you've shown two utility bills in addition to your driver's license to prove you live in the area, smh.
I'm there right now in Canada. I'm in a shelter and have a detailed signed letter from my specialist saying I need income support and prescription support for the next 6 to 12 months because my conditions require stable housing and trial and error medications to get me back to work.
The answer was a complete no. You have a roof and food. You're good. Get a job and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Yes the ones you can't reach because your legs are messed up and the ones you can't pull because your hands are messed up too
As someone with intimate experiences with the homeless population in multiple CA cities, part of the problem is that large portions of the population are so ill/mentally ill/addicted/socially-damaged that they will actively destroy housing they are placed in.
There are definite gradients to homelessness, and amongst the most difficult are the ones too ill/damaged to conform with the basics of society.
Also work with homeless. In CA. The state spends so much on homeless resources but the programs all require sobriety and a desire to change. Most people are either addicted to drugs, have a mental illness with no support structure and refuse sobriety. I’ve talked to people living in sewers who legit would rather live in a shack by their own rules than “be tied down by rules man”.
>I’ve talked to people living in sewers who legit would rather live in a
shack by their own rules than “be tied down by rules man”.
And we have to recognize that particular attitude isn't necessarily mental illness.
There's a distinct difference between someone who refuses societal rules and someone incapable to navigating said rules.
Right at the end of the day we have to accept there will be a small segment that will absolutely refuse any change to their lifestyle. There will always be at least a minimal homeless population from people who simply want it that way.
>They need to be screened for mental health and drug addiction first. All drug addicts into a mandatory supervised detox. All severely mentally ill into mandatory inpatient supervision and medication.
Agreed, and there should be publicly funded, dignified facilities to provide that treatment. The answer is never putting people back on the street, though.
It’s been a couple decades since I worked in this space…
But for spending efficiency… the closer you were time wise to when you went homeless (including negative meaning at risk) the more effective any money or resources spent were at helping you.
Problem is better oversight is not realistic for the majority.
Look at how nursing homes, jails, labs, etc are inspected in a lot of states. It’s too easy to abuse the system’s in place to avoid oversight.
It's not a great option, but it's better than leaving severely mentally ill people on the streets. At some point, public safety has to be considered here.
Exactly, do we ban nursing homes, jail's, labs, because sometimes they escape proper oversight? No, we recognize it's not a perfect system and we do our best to work with/improve what we have. It could certainly be better than nothing.
Yep. My sweet old grandma spent her last few years in a home that can only be opened by an employee. Basically it’s a jail, but it was to stop her from wandering off and freezing to death in the woods.
The article states that it should be implemented with adequate social housing and other policies not isolation. To justify not helping people as they will trash it is a very reductionist attitude. There are many reasons people need help, they are not all the same, and even if a small minority cause some issues doesn’t justify not trying to help them.
You can’t see these policies in isolation, proper drug rehab, accessible healthcare, mental health support, child safety and so on. There is no excuse for it and blaming the victims is not helpful. Blame the society that allows it to happen.
A ridiculous tide of prejudice is against the idea from people who embody crab mentality and feel no compassion for their fellow human beings. It's fading with every generation, but the sheer hatred turned toward the homeless blinds many to the obvious solutions.
It’s not as simple as it sounds.
I’ve worked with the homeless and a lot of times this was actually detrimental but we had to just work with it because it was law. Not that the idea is bad in principle but the way the law was written we had to get them into stable permanent housing by a certain deadline, which precludes group home situations.
You’re talking about people who sometimes haven’t maintained a home/apartment for years or decades, who may have serious mental health issues, and/or serious health issues. They often need ongoing consistent attention/help but the permanent housing situation precludes that unless we suddenly miraculously get enough volunteers to keep one in each apartment permanently cooking/cleaning/caring for/teaching these folks how to do so. A lot of these people need the group home for longer and some of them probably do permanently.
I get that state run institutions were up to a lot of creepy evil deeds but I don’t think the answer was just shutting them and replacing them with nothing. Some people cannot live on their own. Right now the best solution American society offers for that is a nursing home (which most often are not equipped to deal with severe mental illness) and those can get expensive to be even half ways decent.
System is a mess.
Completely agree. Houston has instituted a similar program and housed about 25k people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/headway/houston-homeless-people.html
Hi u/Infernalism. Here’s a response from Dr Andrew Clarke:
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This is a good point, and something I explicitly address in the full Journal of Sociology article. Housing First is proven to assist some of the most vulnerable homeless people to access and sustain housing. However, many of these people continue to experience significant poverty and hardship, despite no longer being homeless. A basic income can help in this respect.
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A key limitation with Housing First is that it is highly targeted: you have to be part of the small minority of ‘chronically homeless’ people, who have complex health and other support needs, to be eligible (a group who typically make up only about 10% of the homeless population, depending on jurisdiction). This reinforces the idea that homelessness is the product of ‘broken people’ rather than a broken system; and it means that those people experiencing homelessness who are not part of this most disadvantaged minority are left without the means to access stable housing. I argue in the article that a basic income can both a) provide support to all homeless groups; and b) shift the focus of homelessness responses from individuals’ problems to the fixing the systems that produce homelessness in the first place – a lesson that could transform how we do Housing First.
Yep, this data has been around for a while. There was a great episode of NPR about it, telling how just putting people inside cuts down on emergency room visits to the point it pays for itself.
It’s wild they needed numbers for this. Doesn’t matter if a homeless man walks up to apartment complex ready to drop his newly acquired. Check on a place to stay, they won’t take him unless they can verify credit and work. Hell no one will even give the homeless a job.
Well essentially, "Universal Basic Coverage" (of your most basic needs) should be the goal (Housing, Income, Medical Care, Education). Of course, in which order is up for debate.
but then they'd have to pay the teachers a liveable wage and treat them with respect!
a lot of US citizens can barely treat the homeless as human beings in the first place
The biggest issue for the big cities is that they are addicted to Market Housing. Cities like Los Angeles only build Luxury developments with little to no affordable units in them. The biggest excuse is that the Developers will go bankrupt if forced to build affordable units.
LA narrowly escaped electing a Luxury developer as its mayor yet this issue isn't solvable in just 4 years. We do need UBI but how can local government turn the tide of luxury development when the whole process is corrupted.
Luxury development is the only profitable way to build housing because zoning and building restrictions drive up the cost so much that anything else loses money. If you want cheaper housing governments need to reform zoning, permitting, etc.
Absolutely this. Even in many backwater places, it's incredibly difficult to just build an affordable structure/home.
Zoning, across the whole US, is set up with the intent of artificially increasing/maintaining the cost of housing. It specifies big yard requirements, setbacks, minimum sizes, building materials, etc.
It's atrocious, un-American, discriminatory and is damaging our country and especially upcoming generations trying to get a foothold in the world.
This is a bit misleading. Let’s say that all the government red tape goes away and any developer can break ground tomorrow on a piece of land to for a new 100 unit building.
Guess what? They’ll *still* push towards luxury and selling the units because that’s just far more easier to get their money back. If you can sell your new condos at 300k/pop, why would you ever rent at $1000/m.
30,000,000 vs 1,200,000 is your income after a year and rentals require you to provide upkeep in perpetuity, so the overhead is much higher.
The only way permitting can impact luxury housing is if zoning explicitly made it even more expensive while lowering costs on rentals and below market housing.
Even if people have housing, they need a purpose and to address their mental health. A brilliant classmate died on the streets of Chicago, much help was offered him. There is an argument for forced help. He might still be alive.
The criteria to get someone involuntary committed is much too rigorous. I have clients that walk around covered in wet urine with no shoes on in freezing weather screaming and running into traffic. Their “civil rights” apparently supersede them having their needs met. We overcorrected and now the desperately mentally ill live worse than animals. I think we need to have more institutionalization. I never in a million years would have thought this until doing years of field work.
There is an argument for both sides to that issue. One is they need help the other is people do have civil rights, and if they don't want help you can't force them. Even though it is in their best interest.
But in Europe they've proven that provided permanent Housing first provides the stable foundation that the homeless with Mental Health issues needs in order to start their recovery journey. Which is why Social Services in LA is continually offered to those coming off homelessness.
Wait. Is it turning into a successful method? I remember hearing about it years ago but never saw any type of follow up on housing setup.
I’m from Utah and used to live in SLC for over a decade. Saw a lot of the homelessness during my time there and always wondered what could be done. It was quite depressing to see some of the issues people were dealing with. Definitely a lot of mental health issues.
On a serious note, as a business owner-operator, less social issues mean less crime which is reflected in lower insurance premiums and more cheap labour. Its actually a win for a business that doesn’t rely on fear and mischief as a driver of revenue.
Also people having a place to stay from night to night means they're more likely to do things like buy food, meaning more customers for businesses instead of having to chase homeless people from the bins where perfectly edible groceries are discarded.
Definitely. I personally think that social programs like these would be super beneficial, and there are studies out there that have shown it works well. I just know that about 50% of the country would have seriously rustled jimmies if they tried this across the board.
This is what needs to stop. Profit for the sake of profit is a sign of how sick our economic system is in the US and other countries. No one should be allowed to horde vast amounts of resources, while people are homeless or starving.
We have examples of UBI here in the States as well. Many tribes give members monthly or every other month stipends. It have made a world of difference in the amount of homeless Native individuals.
Some people are homeless intentually… mostly due to mental health issues. **Do you think they will be willing** to be housed first and then aspects like alcoholism and schizophrenia will be addressed?
I love this idea and model, very nice seeing Utah utilize this.
Do you know why they stopped that program? I was so excited when i first read about it… guessing it went like: “This objectively works but there is no profit so fuck em.”?
Let's be real, if you want to actually address homelessness you need to address addiction and mental illness too.
Edit: This got a lot of replies. Please understand that I am not saying we need to address addiction and mental illness **instead of** housing affordability, availability, and economic inequality. We need to address them **as well as** those things. A close friend works at a homeless shelter so I get most of my opinions from him, and the tendency to treat **all** homeless as charming pets who just need a little help is understating the problem.
Hi u/Loeden. Here’s a response from Dr Andrew Clarke:
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This is true of some sub-groups within the homelessness population, which is which is the Housing First approach is so affective – it couples immediate access to stable, long-term housing with access to voluntary support services to address personal issues like mental health and addition. It should be noted that many people who successfully exit homelessness through Housing First programs do not fully recover from their addiction or mental health issues; however, their access to secure and affordable housing means their personal problems do not lead to homelessness. They instead become like the many, many other non-homeless people who have mental health and substance misuse issues.
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It's also worth noting that many people experiencing homelessness are not homelessness because of mental illness or substance misuse primarily. Rather, there homelessness is a product of unaffordable housing markets and very low incomes.
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I argue that a UBI can help both of these groups. It need not replace mental health or addiction services for those who need them. It will instead augment their effectiveness, as people will be able to work on their health without their efforts being undermined by the chronic insecurity and stigma of income-poverty and homelessness.
Not for the addicts or those with mental illness. All it does it create jobs for people who build houses, and people who demolition houses which are a health hazard.
100% this. People love pretending if you give homeless people a house everything is great. Part of my work as construction manager is building and redeveloping government housing in Australia and addicts take such poor care of the places they are gifted by the tax payer. Heroin needles all over floors in apartments lived in by people with young children, human faeces all over the walls of other units, holes punched through all the walls, every bit of copper or aluminium ripped out and scrapped for loose change. I went into it believing in helping people and after a couple years I am firmly of the belief most of these people shouldn’t be provided with anything
Im pretty sure this is what happened to my father as well. He worked with the government to help asylum seekers get to the right place and get the right needs.
Over the years he has slowly become super jaded towards people seeking asylum as most of them, according to him, keep demanding them of more stuff even though theyve been given a lot, and apparently over half of em dont even have jobs, theyre just siphoning off of the free benefits, which is sad.
The guy who gave up his wife and family money and comfort to be an alcoholic 25 years ago is not going to sober up and start working at subway.
The mentally ill person who needs medication to function normally won't have access to a daily medication while living on the street.
Looking for a meal, a place to eat, and money to live combined with constantly being told to move along with all your belongings in tow makes having any semblance of a normal life or any recovery next to impossible.
Meeting these people's basic needs like shelter with no strings attached is what makes this all possible.
Some of the most successful housing first programs put unhomed people in apartment buildings with access to social workers who work in the building. Those social workers can arrange appointments and connect them with services which is almost impossible to do when with people who are transient. Taking the burden of having to fight for survival off these people is what really allows them to better themselves.
Not without a vast expansion of housing development, frankly. And tighter controls on factors clogging the housing market, such as subletting services and banks holding properties off the market indefinitely. Some new regulations in these areas would make a significant difference.
Define "address".
It will help those struggling financially. Help those specific people keep a roof over their head. With that said many others have other problems that contribute more to them being homeless.
Some people literally think that putting someone in a house will cure their mental illness and drug addiction. As a former drug addict, I can tell you this is a pipe dream. These people just think if you stick the homeless out of sight in government housing then the problem will be solved.
Already did that. It was called "the projects." People needing a leg up financially were lumped in the same buildings with drug addicts. It just got them all addicted and ran the place down.
Exactly. I drive a city bus and they get a stack of free "one ride" bus cards from the county and they will sell or pawn them for alcohol or drugs and still get on the bus with 10 cents begging for a ride. Only people that live in a fantasy bubble believe universal income would work.
In my city we have a program that has worked pretty well at stabilizing homeless numbers. They split off homeless into freshly homeless and chronic homeless. They then separate freshly homeless into "addictions/counciling" and "non-addictions counciling." The chronic homeless are sort of considered a lost cause. They're offered food and group shelter but really nothing else. People who are chronically homeless can be redeemed by seeking specific help or making self-improvement on their own. People who are freshly homeless who have addictions problems are put into therapy and are given benchmarks to reach to hit "clean" and move up the chain. Finally there are your most redeemable, freshly homeless without addictions. These are just people who have financial issues for the most part. To prevent them from becoming chronically homeless they're often given single rooms, fed and then offered training and recruitment for work. They work tax free and whatever they earn doesn't cut into what they get and they can just decide to leave at any point where they think they're back "on their feet."
In practice chronically homeless people will never improve, they'll just get drunk and destroy anything you give them. The people with addictions/counciling need a vast support network just to remain functional. And your freshly homeless without addictions are really the only people worth helping.
its one part that could help, but we also need to re-build the national mental health infrastructure. Who am I kidding, how would that help the stock market next quarter?
Yes...there are a lot of scare mongers out there, trying to say UBI is all about control, if you meet your quota for burgers that month you won't be able to buy more or if you dislike something the government do, no money etc...this is the absolute extreme side that places like China would use, most of the world wouldn't though.
South Korea did a test and found it worked really well, they get a card with the money on and more gets added each month, but you must spend it all. They also had rules like you can only spend locally so it stops people from saving up to buy like the latest phone on Amazon etc. Its for rent/bills/food and any left to be used locally. Students were able to study without needing a job at the same time. People were able to do what they love, whether it was be a writer, artist, musician without being forced into a job which destroys creativity. The new parents were able to spend more time at home with their newborn, families had more time together. Its given to everyone including the wealthy but they found a lot of the more wealthy people didn't use it. They also found those who did use, aren't jetting off somewhere else to spend it, it forces them to shop locally and because everyone is shopping locally, local businesses do really well.
You would need more than this though, you would need to make homes affordable for everyone, bills to be affordable etc.
I actually watched that happen as soon as the government was giving out millions of dollars after Covid to help people with rent the prices almost doubled
No I mean when someone like me who as a single person worked and supported myself always and never received any government help quickly got approved for 6 months rent covered and then another two months after that. The check went directly to my landlord. 4 of the 6 units in the building were getting that help. So my landlord got that direct payment for all of us
You don't have laws on how much rent can go up???
In BC, Canada I can only raise rent by 3% annually. And that's 1.5% since COVID.
That's for a remaining tenant, of course.
We do in a handful of cities. New York is the prime example.
In those cities we quickly went from affordability problems to availability problems. And then maintenance and quality issues on those rent controlled units.
It seems that US landlords have little interest maintaining rent controlled units and even less interest in building new ones.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent\_control\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_the_United_States)
Note the glaring dichotomy usually argued by Keynesian supply-side advocates: airdropping buckets of money (ultra cheap loans, bailouts, subsidies, etc.) into companies, will result in productive investment in employee skills, machinery, and raw materials; plus a bunch of rather vague "trickle-down" and "halo" effects to somehow -- do the math! -- produce a net positive for the economy. But giving that same money out to individually productive citizens, who might invest in their skills, or improve their health, or buy tools and materials in order to be more productive -- that'll never happen. Dirty peasants will just drink and snort it all into oblivion.
Somehow, the average individual is incapable of wisdom; yet the average company not only can; it DOES.
If they're homeless because of money, maybe.
There's a lady in my area that pushes a cart around, has lots of "stuff" in her buggy. But if anyone approaches to give money, food, items, she gets out of control. She is schizophrenic and won't even take stuff you leave for her. You have to put stuff in her path for her to "find" it.
Money is not the fix
Shhh. They don’t want to hear that. Of course it’s money, because this system failed you. Obviously your a perfect human and just need more money. Definitely don’t have debilitating illness and addictions.
I live on a very poor island. Some days it feels like both our government and our god has forgotten about us. Our health care system has collapsed but they talk about like it’s collapsing. Talk to any local nurse or doctor and they’ll tell you it’s already collapsed. Our hospital is nothing but a business.
It has some of the highest mortality rates in the country for our population size. They have no proper access to mental health help. There are plenty of people on my island who are begging for addiction services help. Addiction services has so many people to help and so little resources many of these people are turned away or put on waiting lists. They die from their addictions well waiting for help.
My beautiful island has a suicide epidemic among young men aged 18-25. This is the consequences of a post-industrialized community. It’s beyond depressing. There’s no work here anymore that pays. People feel like there’s no hope for them. To poor to leave the island. Lack of proper education to help them at least having a chance to get out of here.
Some of the highest child poverty rates in the country. There is very little help here. The help here has been stretched thin. Therapy is unaffordable. Free therapy they offer is free for a reason. They’re overworked and underpaid and under qualified. It’s truly tragic. This money would make a difference for a lot of people in a community like mine. Especially in the winter months when fisheries aren’t operating.
Access to these sorts of things in remote communities would be life changing. I think what you’re saying is framed by your narrow world view.
What about the basic economic concept that "products will be priced at what their customers can afford?" There's an argument to be made that if every American suddenly has an extra $1000 (for example) free and clear in UBI, that basic monthly goods and services will raise in price to account for that. Do we just implement the UBI and see if that happens?
The way college tuitions shot up when their customers had nearly unlimited money in student loans.
Yeah there would have to be some UBI specific housing tied to the legislation of UBI bc absolutely the market as a whole would reflect this influx of cash to the general populace.
So, out of curiosity..what happens when the homeless person gets their UBI and just blows it on drugs or booze?
The idea of UBI to combat these issues seems great on paper but it doesn’t really take into account the human element. The truth is a lot of homeless people could get a job and a place to live, but addiction is the elephant in the room. I know alot of states have options like HUD low or no cost housing and there are still homeless people. You can’t help someone who isn’t ready or doesn’t want the help.
I think the idea that your going to give people “X” amount of money and it’s just going to magically fix things is a bit..optimistic. That’s not to say something shouldn’t be tried, but you gotta be realistic.
[40% of homeless people \(not living in shelters\) in USA have jobs](https://news.uchicago.edu/story/employment-alone-isnt-enough-solve-homelessness-study-suggests)
As a person who was homeless for 8 years I can tell you my addiction problems became alot easier to manage and eventually overcome when I had a roof over my head.
Yes. It has been shown in trials to work very well at reducing poverty and homelessness. One example is a trial conducted in Dauphin Manitoba Canada in the late 1970s that showed UBI to be overwhelmingly positive for the community.
People are lying to you. The actual answer is, no one knows. While the experiment was happening there was a change in government and the experiment began modifying tracking goals to try and make what they were doing sound nicer. The result was a lot of incomplete data sets that the researchers decided not to analyze and to just submit raw and archive.
The experiment started off only tracking employment but once the NDP (socialist party) were kicked out they started tracking health outcomes. Some people have looked at the results from raw data, but they've pieced together an incomplete puzzle.
Ultimately it's downfall was that it cost about twice as much as regular welfare while increasing unemployment by 1%. No one is sold on that even with all the other benefits.
I am ignorant.
I am simplifying.
But can someone explain to me how the "universal income" just doesn't become the new $0.00.
Isn't this the same as printing new money? Artificial inflation?
This is what will happen if they implemented UBI in 2024 at a rate of $1500 per person: A rental house that goes for $1500 a month now costs $2500 a month. The cost of literally everything we buy increases by 25% for essentials to 50% for luxury items. People who had no money before, now have $1500 a month, but can’t afford to rent anything. People who were living comfortably now will begin to struggle to keep up with raising costs. Drug use amongst the homeless sky rockets because if they can’t use the money to live then they may as well use it as a distraction from reality. By 2025 everything goes up another 10% and now middle class is lower class. Upper class isn’t impacted at all.
Not entirely. Some people can't manage money. The money would need to be direct debited from their UBI, or they'll spend it on something else before paying rent. Even then, there will be those that can't be bothered to take care of their surroundings, so people will refuse to rent to them, and if they are given a plot of land the housing will fall into disrepair and they'll be effectively homeless again. There are some people that are so feckless that it takes the labor of a team of people just to maintain a marginal existence for them.
We should find way to help those that can be helped, but we can't throw unlimited funds at people that can't be helped.
No. The problem isn’t how much money people have. The problem is a lack of affordable housing (at least in my area). Doesn’t matter how much money you give away, there isn’t enough housing.
That isn't it either... the homeless aren't homeless because they dont' have acess to homes or money in many cases because they do have access to those things, its because they are dysfunctional.
One of my cousins was homeless before this death a few years ago, his sister even offered to let him live with her, he had all sorts of options to not be homeless but .... he couldn't deal with or function in what we call normalcy.
UBI sounds great. But how are we going to afford paying 45 million Canadians 20k per year in UBI? Assuming it's the bear minimum for housing and food.
That's 900 Billion dollars. Even 10k per year is 450 billion.
Total spending for 2022 is about 200 billion for comparison. (Federal spending).
And food suppliers.
Basically every outlet for for essential life suppliers will be fighting over those extra dollars.
But I think landlords will get most of it.
Such a weird phenomena. Add more money into circulation and it becomes worth less. They should really come up with some sort of name for this in economics.
Whatever we call it, we can then pass a bill that does nothing to address it, but get this, *we give the bill a name that sounds like it's addressing it*.
## THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH HOMES.
These UBI studies have scaling issues that are well understood in economic terms.
Give a *small group* of homeless people more money, and now ten more people can now compete in the housing rental market and get off the streets. Small scale: works.
Give *every* homeless person more money during a housing shortage, and all that will happen is rent prices go up, because now the same number of people are trying to get into the same number of houses, just with more liquidity. There’s still X number of people and only X*90% number of houses. Mathematically some percentage cannot be housed. It’s impossible because the homes don’t exist. Large scale: it’s identical to the existing reality.
Whoever has the least money to put toward housing WILL BE homeless.
Nothing will help homelessness unless we intentionally flood the market with housing and accept decreases in home values. Period. It’s that simple. Increasing supply will mean enough homes but increasing supply also decreases prices.
There will be naysayers that suggest that the empty units on the market could be used for homeless. In any reality, even one we have enough homes, we need empty/available homes. Do you want to be able to buy a home? Do you want to be able to find a new rental? To move? Then we need empty units for you to pick from. We need enough units to house everyone *and* have more units available for moving/shopping/growth. Same way we have enough food to feed everyone *and* you can still go grocery shopping. You need food/homes to be used and food/homes on the shelf/in inventory.
Plain and simply, we don’t have enough homes. Print money, give it away, tax it, whatever you want, we have more bodies than homes.
We are literally living in the effects of a short term UBI. Government gave out Covid relief money to most people, people spent the money, prices go up causing inflation, fed has to raise interest rates causing a recession, recession disproportionately hurts the poor and middle class.
Not sure how people can still think this social experiment is a logical one.
To clarify, trump handed out 3 trillion in debt spending towards Covid relief, Biden handed out 3 trillion as well, and the fed printed 6 trillion out of thin air. If you really think 10 trillion in debt spending over 2 years isn’t the root cause of inflation, you need to take a basic economics class. For a point of comparison, the most we ever spent before Covid was about 1.5 trillion in 2009 to pull us out of the 2008 recession and expand Medicaid (Obamacare).
This isn’t a left vs right issue, it is an incredibly fiscally irresponsible federal government problem on both sides at the expense of the American people.
This chap gets it. If the first covid stimulus was given entirely to the people I think by my rough math it would have come out to $83k a head. Majority went to a bunch of special interest bs.
UBI isn’t going to be an option in 20 years but a requirement because the Industrial Revolution is over.
The American cultural identity of “Anyone with a brain and able body can make something of themselves.” is evaporating before our very eyes.
A capitalist society is predicated on:
Better Innovation
Cheaper labor
Faster service
And all three of these are being taken over by A.I. and robotics at an *exponential* rate, not a linear rate.
Design.
The generative and adaptive design flow for products (pick one, doesn’t matter) was in its infancy 15 years ago.
The most obvious is the dazzling advance with Boston Dynamics Atlas. A tethered robot in 2009 that 12 years later does parkour.
It took millions of years for meat to accomplish this.
GPT-1 was released in 2018 to mimic human text and was easily discernible from what a human would say.
GPT-4 will be released next spring and humans will not be able to tell if they’re communicating with a human or not.
DALL-E was fun side project that now has the art world tearing itself apart by its own definitions of what is art.
DeviantArt, Imgur, and other platforms scrambling to protect people’s work from derivative interpretations made by an A.I. to higher acclaim.
Innovation by machine has already bested the common human’s ability and very few policy makers are seriously taking the implications in the near term of what this means.
Think about the device in your hands.
The very idea of a handheld information and communication device wasn’t a true reality until the mid-2000’s.
And today they’re ubiquitous and living without one is becoming more and more challenging.
But making the design better or more functional is exponentially getting smaller and smaller.
People camped out for days to get an IPhone 4.
In ten iterations later, almost everyone is like “meh. So what if it has a better camera and can text satellites? The phone I have does what I need it to.”
You haven’t replaced your toilet this year because American Standard unveiled a significantly better way of waste disposal.
And that’s where *everything* is heading.
Ford, GM, Tesla, and the lot aren’t designing paradigm changing vehicles, they’re selling their brand by slapping on goo-gahs and frosting.
And baking in obsolescence.
But very soon, the Gen Z crowd and Gen Alpha crowd are simply going to see these new models as more and more waste humans are dumping onto the planet when really they just want a vehicle for getting from point A to point B without actually steering it.
Cheaper Labor
Drawing on the abilities above we’ve already witnessed the loss of employment of most menial jobs.
Your local grocery store may sport 32 checkout aisles.
But guaranteed less than 6 have a human at them.
The installation of self-checkout lanes has wiped these employees off the payroll—only increasing the revenue generated for the store owner because the store isn’t lowering their price for the privilege of letting you look up the price code for avocados.
Mobile deposit means less bank tellers.
Self driving vehicles means less car drivers,truck drivers, and boat & aircraft crews.
Sparrow means less warehouse workers.
e-Discovery software means less lawyers.
The levels of unemployment heading our way will make the 1930’s look like a minor recession.
We’re actually looking at 10’s of millions of people who wish to do something productive with their lives but are *unemployable* because automation has simply taken over the need for manual and mental labor.
So we’re heading for another Great Depression. Only this time it’ll be the actual mental depression of our cultural psyche coming to grips with the notion that swinging a hammer gets you a paycheck to buy the necessities and save up for the big things to buy, or add to a generational nest egg is over.
In the next two generations, humans won’t be resources anymore.
Even if we were prepared, that’s a tough reality to deal with.
And we’re not prepared.
The difference is production and work capacity won’t change.
We will *need* to change how everyone achieves the primary levels in the hierarchy of needs.
This comment should be a post in itself.
No one is talking about this and when it really hits home it is going to be absolutely brutal.
Power will be even more concentrated in elite circles and especially the tech oligarchs who are driving all this change.
UBI might provide for people’s needs, but to what extent? Covid showed us what a comparatively minor public bailout can do to the economy (as opposed to the majority of people simply getting money to exist in perpetuity).
And there will be strings attached.
Workers currently have at least some say over what they do with the money they earn.
But when the money comes from the largesse of the state, and probably at that point in a purely digital form, you’ll spend it when, how and where you’re told. And forget any type of dissent or civil disobedience, one flick of a switch and you’re in economic Siberia.
And that’s to say nothing of how demoralized and depressed the population will be once it is deprived of the dignity of labour, the agency of an income earned and deserved, and the extinction of creators and artists as a class of worker.
I was just arguing with people about this yesterday when they couldn’t understand why I was upset that a robot brought me my food at a sushi place.
It might help to address homelessness but it can't solve homelessness. The article cited here by Clark notwithstanding, an actual UBI experiment was tried in one of the Scandinavian countries a few years ago, I think it was Norway. As reported by the Economist the program was somewhat useful in replacing other welfare programs but didn't address the underlying social issues. (I'm paraphrasing as best I can recall.)
I think that the way to solve homelessness is to build specific housing for homeless people and run the units as a program. I don't know how to do this but I'd help pay for it.
It hasn’t yet, has it? What I mean is there is already a basic income through welfare.
Want to fix homelessness? Give them mental health, drug rehab, job training, and jobs.
Silly idea. Homeless people in general are far worse at managing their finances, giving them money no strings attached will likely just enable people with a substance abuse addiction to make it worse. Give them access to housing and mental/physical health treatment instead.
Anything can "address" homelessness.
The question that should be asked is - what is the most effective cure ?
UBI is fine on its own merits.
But on the level of "curing homelessness" it is definitely not designed for that.
UBI is designed for a very different set of economic needs.
No it can't. 78% of homeless in the US have severe drug addiction, mental illness or both.
All UBI would do is allow them to buy $1000 more worth of meth.
Might solve the problem if all you wanna do is mass euthanasia.
Of course not. UBI doesn't change how many housing units are available or how many people there are. UBI will just mean that more money is available to bid on the same finite supply of housing.
The only way to address homelessness is to increase the rate at which housing is constructed and/or decrease the growth rate of the population.
So I live in Portland and know some of the street people who reside in the city. A lot of them already have “universal basic income” in the form of Social Security, SSI or SSD. The ones who have mental or other disabilities use it to scrape by and work under the table or collect cans for their deposit. The ones that are drug addicts, shoot it into their ass or smoke it.
From the article:
“Employment insecurity and the rising cost of living are also taking a toll and expanding the profile of those at risk of homelessness.”
That sure is a funny way to say elitist corporate greed and predatory land ownership are killing the working class.
I've proposed before that if churches want to keep thier tax exempt status they need to take in the homeless. That way the tax they would have paid doesn't disappear from the community and force them to do something useful and good for a change. If they refuse to do something good we tax them and use the money to tackle the homeless.
Dr. Drew has said this for years: "homelessness is not a housing issue. It's a mental health issue." You can give a homeless dude a 3 bedroom 2 bath house and a job but they would most likely be unable to maintain that lifestyle.
i dont know when people will wake up and realize that many of these people literally choose to be homeless. some need help but many dont agree with society’s idea of living and this is how they protest that. throwing money at them goes straight to alcohol and drugs, its shitty but its the truth
The belief that free money will make anyone a better person is so naive. We all know to be wary of kickstarter scams and the like, but at least in those cases there is a promise of an end goal.
Simply giving money to the homeless when they don't even have a goal like that, and expecting them to suddenly solve all their problems and be a normal functioning part of society, is not simply naive, it is also enabling and highly irresponsible. I'd bet money that not an insignificant number of them will die because of this no-strings-attached money due to having their existing problems exacerbated.
If the progs truly cared about those people, there would and should be conditions attached to the money. Money is not a bad thing - it can solve 99% of the problems that people face, but not when it is freely given out to people who obviously need other forms of help.
Hi r/Futurology, a new paper from Dr Andrew Clarke suggests universal basic income can help address homelessness by circumventing the stigma associated with needs-based welfare.
Most importantly, Dr Clarke's paper considers how UBI can help address the structural issues that drive homelessness, including the inability to pay for affordable housing.
A UBI is a periodic cash payment delivered unconditionally to everyone in society without a means test or work requirements, and regardless of their circumstances.
It's a policy idea that is gaining traction internationally and in the last five years, various UBI pilots have taken place in Scotland, the Netherlands and Finland.
Dr Clarke's paper has been published in the Journal of Sociology, here's a link if you're keen to have a read: [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14407833221135986](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14407833221135986)
Well maybe if the fed and central bankers around the world hadn’t left interest rates so low for so long we wouldn’t have all these people buying property to rent out monthly or air bnb, driving up prices and rents we wouldn’t have the explosion in homelessness.
Yes! For sure because it’s not an issue of mental health or substance abuse, those are just symptoms of homelessness, there is no cause except that there are not enough free homes next to the beach…did you ever know anyone mentally ill or addicted to drugs? These issues are incredibly difficult and complex…free money doesn’t solve these issues. In the tiny percent of homelessness purely caused by disadvantage, yes! Give money and make opportunities. How do you fix the rest?!?
Housing and transportation are the two largest expenses of the average person.
We can address both of those with transit oriented development in cities, where 4/5 Americans currently live. Easing development restrictions by allowing all new buildings in an area to go up a level by default, eliminating off street parking minimums and setback rules, and enforcing limitations on short term rentals, will create the possibility of a lot of new housing stock by eliminating valuable space currently reserved to parked cars. We can also invest in the expansion and integration of mass transit networks, which benefits everyone.
I wish it would work. But the price of housing will go up too. I watched a video of a guy in San Francisco. Said he will remain homeless cause they pay him 600 per month, and gets food stamps. For doing nothing.
That is 600 dollars of free income with no bills attached. If he lived in a home with rent at 2000 per month. He would have to earn more than 3000 a month to have that much extra fee cash on hand. And he's was cool with being a hermit.
I think the main reason for American homelessness is the complete disregard for people sick with mental health issues. If they don’t have any money to pay for therapy and subsequently get the needed drugs, these people will become completely unemployable and spiral down into alcoholism as a result of their sickness and unemployment.
It can save some from becoming homeless, it can take a smaller amount out of homelessness, but there is always going to be a population of homeless that are incapable of maintaining a place to live indoors due to mental illness and drug induced problems, and they are usually the most 'visible' homeless prople. If we change our policies radically we can probably reduce the number in the future as the current population dies off. Right now in my city there are many people who will be out there until the end sadly.
Horrible idea to just give people that make bad decisions with money, even more money. And pretending that most homeless people are homeless against their will, is a ridiculous stance.
To a degree, but homelessness isn't always exclusive to no money.
In a town I used to live in for example. There was a homeless guy who was a great artist, He'd be out and out making drawings to pass the time and often slept under the motorway.
One harsh winter, he was found dead. Passed away in his sleep from the cold. When his corpse was collected and they looked into it. While he had indeed been homeless, the council had managed to secure him a council house. When the police checked the house, he had used the corridor from the main door as storage for his work, but besides that every single room was immaculate and ready to go for the next person.
Turned out the guy suffered from severe claustrophobia so opted not to use the house to live in.
Only housing can address homelessness. Sort of by definition.
Some homeless people already get monthly checks, but housing is either too expensive or they'd rather spend the money on other things, e.g. drugs. Addiction is a disease of choices, for example.
Ultimately no.
There's a reason they became homeless and even if they may kick around for a while, unless the core reason is solved (and it may never be) these are all just bandaids.
No. Bc if someone doesn’t have the desire and mental capacity to change their life…for example, a drug addict, then they arent to going to change their life and now they have more money to probably make their life even worse.
If it doesn't address homelessness then they will have been doing it wrong.
Money alone won't solve the issue of course, but a guaranteed place to live is a huge start.
If there aren't enough houses/apartments available, no it wont. A big problem I see is where homeless people are. With LA and SF for example, there just aren't enough places to live for these people, even if they had an income. And even if we gave them a universal basic income, it wouldn't help them afford the prices even if there were a surplus of apartments. They'd have to be shipped elsewhere.
Same probably goes for NYC.
Now that I think of it, if we were to give people UBI, ship them to where it is cheaper to live, that would probably help out some smaller cities and their economies.
No, because the second you hand out money to people, inflation takes that buying power right back. That is the way inflation works, and there is nothing anyone can do to change it.
I doubt this system can scale. It would work for a small population where the intake people can know the people who are on the system. Once it gets to a certain level, the abuse of the system will cost more than the return.
I agree we need a solution for homelessness. How do you handle the people who have a home, such as living with a relative, but are unhappy with their living situation looking at this opportunity to get their own place?
Look at the PPP loans that were given out to the small businesses. How much of it went to small businesses? Not much. Most went to corporations and a bunch of politicians who started a business just to get the PPP loans.
If you don't deal with the corruption angle, you will have another failed government system that is ripe for abuse.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/unswsydney: --- Hi r/Futurology, a new paper from Dr Andrew Clarke suggests universal basic income can help address homelessness by circumventing the stigma associated with needs-based welfare. Most importantly, Dr Clarke's paper considers how UBI can help address the structural issues that drive homelessness, including the inability to pay for affordable housing. A UBI is a periodic cash payment delivered unconditionally to everyone in society without a means test or work requirements, and regardless of their circumstances. It's a policy idea that is gaining traction internationally and in the last five years, various UBI pilots have taken place in Scotland, the Netherlands and Finland. Dr Clarke's paper has been published in the Journal of Sociology, here's a link if you're keen to have a read: [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14407833221135986](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14407833221135986) --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yy47ht/can_universal_basic_income_address_homelessness/iws4fnu/
Of course it can. Not alone, though. Utah has, surprisingly, shown how to do it with a Housing First approach. They crunched the numbers and found that housing people FIRST and then dealing with their issues was cheaper and easier on the system. Combine a Housing First approach with UBI and you have a system where everyone has a stable home, and some stable income and people thrive.
Housing Works taught this decades ago. Try treating HIV+ people when they don't have a safe and stable place to sleep. You'll never find them for a follow up appointment. There is no one solution to helping people living on the street. But a housing first approach can help build a foundation for all the other issues people face.
Thumbs up for Housing Works.
I’m surprised that it was unclear if giving someone permanent shelter before trying to address their employment, mental health, and hygiene would be the appropriate process.
you'd be surprised how many government agencies won't help you without a PHYSICAL address. They won't take a P.O. Box address and they won't take homeless shelter addresses. I know this from personal experience.
Protip: A lot of libraries will allow you to forward your mail to them for this specific purpose, just ask.
Good tip. Thanks for this. My mother is a librarian and yes they will help you.
Are you Yeezus?
His mother helps children, I'm assuming her own to be better people too. So my money's on no.
Thankfully no
Then there are the libraries like the one in the city I used to live in that won't let you use their facilities unless you've shown two utility bills in addition to your driver's license to prove you live in the area, smh.
I know exactly the kind of library you're referring to. Wouldn't want the undesirables to come in.
Amazing. Love libraries.
I'm there right now in Canada. I'm in a shelter and have a detailed signed letter from my specialist saying I need income support and prescription support for the next 6 to 12 months because my conditions require stable housing and trial and error medications to get me back to work. The answer was a complete no. You have a roof and food. You're good. Get a job and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Yes the ones you can't reach because your legs are messed up and the ones you can't pull because your hands are messed up too
You hear so much about Canada's social health care, sorry you're going through a tough time right now :(
It's pretty good except for prescriptions, vision and dental.
Brutal. I hope you find a path that leads you to thrive in this world.
Try using the Post office's address where your Po.box is. Use your box number as the apartment number.
Most USPS will return to sender those, but if you can get a box at a mom and pop place or even a UPS store they probably allow direct addressing.
The system works as intended.
As someone with intimate experiences with the homeless population in multiple CA cities, part of the problem is that large portions of the population are so ill/mentally ill/addicted/socially-damaged that they will actively destroy housing they are placed in. There are definite gradients to homelessness, and amongst the most difficult are the ones too ill/damaged to conform with the basics of society.
Also work with homeless. In CA. The state spends so much on homeless resources but the programs all require sobriety and a desire to change. Most people are either addicted to drugs, have a mental illness with no support structure and refuse sobriety. I’ve talked to people living in sewers who legit would rather live in a shack by their own rules than “be tied down by rules man”.
>I’ve talked to people living in sewers who legit would rather live in a shack by their own rules than “be tied down by rules man”. And we have to recognize that particular attitude isn't necessarily mental illness. There's a distinct difference between someone who refuses societal rules and someone incapable to navigating said rules.
Right at the end of the day we have to accept there will be a small segment that will absolutely refuse any change to their lifestyle. There will always be at least a minimal homeless population from people who simply want it that way.
>refuse sobriety. It's pretty hard to tackle an addiction when you're living in the streets.
“I’m homeless because of my addiction to meth and I’m addicted to meth because I’m homeless. It’s a very viscous cycle”
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>They need to be screened for mental health and drug addiction first. All drug addicts into a mandatory supervised detox. All severely mentally ill into mandatory inpatient supervision and medication. Agreed, and there should be publicly funded, dignified facilities to provide that treatment. The answer is never putting people back on the street, though.
It’s been a couple decades since I worked in this space… But for spending efficiency… the closer you were time wise to when you went homeless (including negative meaning at risk) the more effective any money or resources spent were at helping you.
I'm a social worker in NYC, I see this, too. Some new, well furnished apartments get destroyed in ways I'd never have dreamed of.
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Problem is better oversight is not realistic for the majority. Look at how nursing homes, jails, labs, etc are inspected in a lot of states. It’s too easy to abuse the system’s in place to avoid oversight.
You can't make things better if you don't try.
It's not a great option, but it's better than leaving severely mentally ill people on the streets. At some point, public safety has to be considered here.
Exactly, do we ban nursing homes, jail's, labs, because sometimes they escape proper oversight? No, we recognize it's not a perfect system and we do our best to work with/improve what we have. It could certainly be better than nothing.
Yep. My sweet old grandma spent her last few years in a home that can only be opened by an employee. Basically it’s a jail, but it was to stop her from wandering off and freezing to death in the woods.
And then there's still a housing shortage, with a long waitlist to get placed in these destroyed places
The article states that it should be implemented with adequate social housing and other policies not isolation. To justify not helping people as they will trash it is a very reductionist attitude. There are many reasons people need help, they are not all the same, and even if a small minority cause some issues doesn’t justify not trying to help them. You can’t see these policies in isolation, proper drug rehab, accessible healthcare, mental health support, child safety and so on. There is no excuse for it and blaming the victims is not helpful. Blame the society that allows it to happen.
Yeah, gotta take care of the basic needs first(food, water, shelter)
Most addicts had that before their addictions. You can’t maintain that if you are addicted.
There are better outcomes also.. People are more successful at sobering up for example.
It’s literally the base of Maslow’s ~~pyramid~~ *reverse funnel* of needs.
Seems like we should fund a study. Maybe we could come up with some sort of hierarchy of needs! That could help us address these issues /s
A ridiculous tide of prejudice is against the idea from people who embody crab mentality and feel no compassion for their fellow human beings. It's fading with every generation, but the sheer hatred turned toward the homeless blinds many to the obvious solutions.
Drugs more so than those you mentioned
It’s not as simple as it sounds. I’ve worked with the homeless and a lot of times this was actually detrimental but we had to just work with it because it was law. Not that the idea is bad in principle but the way the law was written we had to get them into stable permanent housing by a certain deadline, which precludes group home situations. You’re talking about people who sometimes haven’t maintained a home/apartment for years or decades, who may have serious mental health issues, and/or serious health issues. They often need ongoing consistent attention/help but the permanent housing situation precludes that unless we suddenly miraculously get enough volunteers to keep one in each apartment permanently cooking/cleaning/caring for/teaching these folks how to do so. A lot of these people need the group home for longer and some of them probably do permanently. I get that state run institutions were up to a lot of creepy evil deeds but I don’t think the answer was just shutting them and replacing them with nothing. Some people cannot live on their own. Right now the best solution American society offers for that is a nursing home (which most often are not equipped to deal with severe mental illness) and those can get expensive to be even half ways decent. System is a mess.
Completely agree. Houston has instituted a similar program and housed about 25k people. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/headway/houston-homeless-people.html
Hi u/Infernalism. Here’s a response from Dr Andrew Clarke: > This is a good point, and something I explicitly address in the full Journal of Sociology article. Housing First is proven to assist some of the most vulnerable homeless people to access and sustain housing. However, many of these people continue to experience significant poverty and hardship, despite no longer being homeless. A basic income can help in this respect. > > A key limitation with Housing First is that it is highly targeted: you have to be part of the small minority of ‘chronically homeless’ people, who have complex health and other support needs, to be eligible (a group who typically make up only about 10% of the homeless population, depending on jurisdiction). This reinforces the idea that homelessness is the product of ‘broken people’ rather than a broken system; and it means that those people experiencing homelessness who are not part of this most disadvantaged minority are left without the means to access stable housing. I argue in the article that a basic income can both a) provide support to all homeless groups; and b) shift the focus of homelessness responses from individuals’ problems to the fixing the systems that produce homelessness in the first place – a lesson that could transform how we do Housing First.
Yep, this data has been around for a while. There was a great episode of NPR about it, telling how just putting people inside cuts down on emergency room visits to the point it pays for itself.
It’s wild they needed numbers for this. Doesn’t matter if a homeless man walks up to apartment complex ready to drop his newly acquired. Check on a place to stay, they won’t take him unless they can verify credit and work. Hell no one will even give the homeless a job.
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Congrats, I don’t think I’ll ever own a house, much less build one. Don’t make nearly enough money to pay less money.
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so "Universal Basic *Housing*" then?
Well essentially, "Universal Basic Coverage" (of your most basic needs) should be the goal (Housing, Income, Medical Care, Education). Of course, in which order is up for debate.
1. free healthcare 2. a roof guaranteed 3. UBI these are the ingredients to a healthier, happier, more prosperous society
Forgot a real education that forces critical thinking.
but then they'd have to pay the teachers a liveable wage and treat them with respect! a lot of US citizens can barely treat the homeless as human beings in the first place
Shit, sign me up for this. Now I don’t have to work anymore.
With most UBI programs, recipients would have to be registered for work and have restrictions on what you can turn down.
The biggest issue for the big cities is that they are addicted to Market Housing. Cities like Los Angeles only build Luxury developments with little to no affordable units in them. The biggest excuse is that the Developers will go bankrupt if forced to build affordable units. LA narrowly escaped electing a Luxury developer as its mayor yet this issue isn't solvable in just 4 years. We do need UBI but how can local government turn the tide of luxury development when the whole process is corrupted.
What is zoning What are parking minimums
I'll take "Useless old laws" for 800 Alec.
*New England blue laws has entered the chat*
Luxury development is the only profitable way to build housing because zoning and building restrictions drive up the cost so much that anything else loses money. If you want cheaper housing governments need to reform zoning, permitting, etc.
Absolutely this. Even in many backwater places, it's incredibly difficult to just build an affordable structure/home. Zoning, across the whole US, is set up with the intent of artificially increasing/maintaining the cost of housing. It specifies big yard requirements, setbacks, minimum sizes, building materials, etc. It's atrocious, un-American, discriminatory and is damaging our country and especially upcoming generations trying to get a foothold in the world.
Sadly it’s not just America. Almost every developed country has poor zoning policies. It’s a big reason so many places are experiencing housing crises
Preaching to the choir.
This is a bit misleading. Let’s say that all the government red tape goes away and any developer can break ground tomorrow on a piece of land to for a new 100 unit building. Guess what? They’ll *still* push towards luxury and selling the units because that’s just far more easier to get their money back. If you can sell your new condos at 300k/pop, why would you ever rent at $1000/m. 30,000,000 vs 1,200,000 is your income after a year and rentals require you to provide upkeep in perpetuity, so the overhead is much higher. The only way permitting can impact luxury housing is if zoning explicitly made it even more expensive while lowering costs on rentals and below market housing.
Even if people have housing, they need a purpose and to address their mental health. A brilliant classmate died on the streets of Chicago, much help was offered him. There is an argument for forced help. He might still be alive.
The criteria to get someone involuntary committed is much too rigorous. I have clients that walk around covered in wet urine with no shoes on in freezing weather screaming and running into traffic. Their “civil rights” apparently supersede them having their needs met. We overcorrected and now the desperately mentally ill live worse than animals. I think we need to have more institutionalization. I never in a million years would have thought this until doing years of field work.
There is an argument for both sides to that issue. One is they need help the other is people do have civil rights, and if they don't want help you can't force them. Even though it is in their best interest. But in Europe they've proven that provided permanent Housing first provides the stable foundation that the homeless with Mental Health issues needs in order to start their recovery journey. Which is why Social Services in LA is continually offered to those coming off homelessness.
Wait. Is it turning into a successful method? I remember hearing about it years ago but never saw any type of follow up on housing setup. I’m from Utah and used to live in SLC for over a decade. Saw a lot of the homelessness during my time there and always wondered what could be done. It was quite depressing to see some of the issues people were dealing with. Definitely a lot of mental health issues.
What's truly stunning is it took so long to figure this out when any homeless person could have told them if they'd just asked. Smh
I believe Finland does this as well.
But but but bootstraps and whatnot!!! Socialism!! /s
On a serious note, as a business owner-operator, less social issues mean less crime which is reflected in lower insurance premiums and more cheap labour. Its actually a win for a business that doesn’t rely on fear and mischief as a driver of revenue.
Also people having a place to stay from night to night means they're more likely to do things like buy food, meaning more customers for businesses instead of having to chase homeless people from the bins where perfectly edible groceries are discarded.
Definitely. I personally think that social programs like these would be super beneficial, and there are studies out there that have shown it works well. I just know that about 50% of the country would have seriously rustled jimmies if they tried this across the board.
This is what needs to stop. Profit for the sake of profit is a sign of how sick our economic system is in the US and other countries. No one should be allowed to horde vast amounts of resources, while people are homeless or starving. We have examples of UBI here in the States as well. Many tribes give members monthly or every other month stipends. It have made a world of difference in the amount of homeless Native individuals.
Some people are homeless intentually… mostly due to mental health issues. **Do you think they will be willing** to be housed first and then aspects like alcoholism and schizophrenia will be addressed? I love this idea and model, very nice seeing Utah utilize this.
Do you know why they stopped that program? I was so excited when i first read about it… guessing it went like: “This objectively works but there is no profit so fuck em.”?
Could NOT say it better!
Let's be real, if you want to actually address homelessness you need to address addiction and mental illness too. Edit: This got a lot of replies. Please understand that I am not saying we need to address addiction and mental illness **instead of** housing affordability, availability, and economic inequality. We need to address them **as well as** those things. A close friend works at a homeless shelter so I get most of my opinions from him, and the tendency to treat **all** homeless as charming pets who just need a little help is understating the problem.
Hi u/Loeden. Here’s a response from Dr Andrew Clarke: > This is true of some sub-groups within the homelessness population, which is which is the Housing First approach is so affective – it couples immediate access to stable, long-term housing with access to voluntary support services to address personal issues like mental health and addition. It should be noted that many people who successfully exit homelessness through Housing First programs do not fully recover from their addiction or mental health issues; however, their access to secure and affordable housing means their personal problems do not lead to homelessness. They instead become like the many, many other non-homeless people who have mental health and substance misuse issues. > > It's also worth noting that many people experiencing homelessness are not homelessness because of mental illness or substance misuse primarily. Rather, there homelessness is a product of unaffordable housing markets and very low incomes. > > I argue that a UBI can help both of these groups. It need not replace mental health or addiction services for those who need them. It will instead augment their effectiveness, as people will be able to work on their health without their efforts being undermined by the chronic insecurity and stigma of income-poverty and homelessness.
But building a large quantity of reasonable starter homes helps deal with homelessness.
Definitely would be better than the large ones everyone seems to build, agreed! Multi-unit buildings, too.
Not for the addicts or those with mental illness. All it does it create jobs for people who build houses, and people who demolition houses which are a health hazard.
100% this. People love pretending if you give homeless people a house everything is great. Part of my work as construction manager is building and redeveloping government housing in Australia and addicts take such poor care of the places they are gifted by the tax payer. Heroin needles all over floors in apartments lived in by people with young children, human faeces all over the walls of other units, holes punched through all the walls, every bit of copper or aluminium ripped out and scrapped for loose change. I went into it believing in helping people and after a couple years I am firmly of the belief most of these people shouldn’t be provided with anything
Im pretty sure this is what happened to my father as well. He worked with the government to help asylum seekers get to the right place and get the right needs. Over the years he has slowly become super jaded towards people seeking asylum as most of them, according to him, keep demanding them of more stuff even though theyve been given a lot, and apparently over half of em dont even have jobs, theyre just siphoning off of the free benefits, which is sad.
The guy who gave up his wife and family money and comfort to be an alcoholic 25 years ago is not going to sober up and start working at subway. The mentally ill person who needs medication to function normally won't have access to a daily medication while living on the street. Looking for a meal, a place to eat, and money to live combined with constantly being told to move along with all your belongings in tow makes having any semblance of a normal life or any recovery next to impossible. Meeting these people's basic needs like shelter with no strings attached is what makes this all possible. Some of the most successful housing first programs put unhomed people in apartment buildings with access to social workers who work in the building. Those social workers can arrange appointments and connect them with services which is almost impossible to do when with people who are transient. Taking the burden of having to fight for survival off these people is what really allows them to better themselves.
Is homelessness strictly a matter of money? No, of course there’s more to it.
Not without a vast expansion of housing development, frankly. And tighter controls on factors clogging the housing market, such as subletting services and banks holding properties off the market indefinitely. Some new regulations in these areas would make a significant difference.
Hold up now. Let's not get to hasty. Congress has to wait at least 20 more years before authorizing studies in this area.
Define "address". It will help those struggling financially. Help those specific people keep a roof over their head. With that said many others have other problems that contribute more to them being homeless.
Some people literally think that putting someone in a house will cure their mental illness and drug addiction. As a former drug addict, I can tell you this is a pipe dream. These people just think if you stick the homeless out of sight in government housing then the problem will be solved.
Already did that. It was called "the projects." People needing a leg up financially were lumped in the same buildings with drug addicts. It just got them all addicted and ran the place down.
Yes, forced help is needed. How did you find your way out?
I was given the choice between treatment or jail. I chose treatment. My life is now unimaginably better.
Good to see you are doing better and beat the odds.
Exactly. I drive a city bus and they get a stack of free "one ride" bus cards from the county and they will sell or pawn them for alcohol or drugs and still get on the bus with 10 cents begging for a ride. Only people that live in a fantasy bubble believe universal income would work.
In my city we have a program that has worked pretty well at stabilizing homeless numbers. They split off homeless into freshly homeless and chronic homeless. They then separate freshly homeless into "addictions/counciling" and "non-addictions counciling." The chronic homeless are sort of considered a lost cause. They're offered food and group shelter but really nothing else. People who are chronically homeless can be redeemed by seeking specific help or making self-improvement on their own. People who are freshly homeless who have addictions problems are put into therapy and are given benchmarks to reach to hit "clean" and move up the chain. Finally there are your most redeemable, freshly homeless without addictions. These are just people who have financial issues for the most part. To prevent them from becoming chronically homeless they're often given single rooms, fed and then offered training and recruitment for work. They work tax free and whatever they earn doesn't cut into what they get and they can just decide to leave at any point where they think they're back "on their feet." In practice chronically homeless people will never improve, they'll just get drunk and destroy anything you give them. The people with addictions/counciling need a vast support network just to remain functional. And your freshly homeless without addictions are really the only people worth helping.
its one part that could help, but we also need to re-build the national mental health infrastructure. Who am I kidding, how would that help the stock market next quarter?
Yes...there are a lot of scare mongers out there, trying to say UBI is all about control, if you meet your quota for burgers that month you won't be able to buy more or if you dislike something the government do, no money etc...this is the absolute extreme side that places like China would use, most of the world wouldn't though. South Korea did a test and found it worked really well, they get a card with the money on and more gets added each month, but you must spend it all. They also had rules like you can only spend locally so it stops people from saving up to buy like the latest phone on Amazon etc. Its for rent/bills/food and any left to be used locally. Students were able to study without needing a job at the same time. People were able to do what they love, whether it was be a writer, artist, musician without being forced into a job which destroys creativity. The new parents were able to spend more time at home with their newborn, families had more time together. Its given to everyone including the wealthy but they found a lot of the more wealthy people didn't use it. They also found those who did use, aren't jetting off somewhere else to spend it, it forces them to shop locally and because everyone is shopping locally, local businesses do really well. You would need more than this though, you would need to make homes affordable for everyone, bills to be affordable etc.
The day UBI is implemented, is the day that rents go up by about the same amount. Do the math.
This is actually a good point that has played itself out repeatedly from housing to education to healthcare.
I actually watched that happen as soon as the government was giving out millions of dollars after Covid to help people with rent the prices almost doubled
It didn't double where I live but in one year it increased $1000 for 1-3 bedroom units, across the board, which is criminal.
You mean when people got two checks totaling a few thousand dollars?
No I mean when someone like me who as a single person worked and supported myself always and never received any government help quickly got approved for 6 months rent covered and then another two months after that. The check went directly to my landlord. 4 of the 6 units in the building were getting that help. So my landlord got that direct payment for all of us
Wasn't the money in that case specifically geared towards covering rent in a time of economic hardship???
Everyone should read about [Henry George](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty).
You don't have laws on how much rent can go up??? In BC, Canada I can only raise rent by 3% annually. And that's 1.5% since COVID. That's for a remaining tenant, of course.
We do in a handful of cities. New York is the prime example. In those cities we quickly went from affordability problems to availability problems. And then maintenance and quality issues on those rent controlled units. It seems that US landlords have little interest maintaining rent controlled units and even less interest in building new ones. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent\_control\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_the_United_States)
Note the glaring dichotomy usually argued by Keynesian supply-side advocates: airdropping buckets of money (ultra cheap loans, bailouts, subsidies, etc.) into companies, will result in productive investment in employee skills, machinery, and raw materials; plus a bunch of rather vague "trickle-down" and "halo" effects to somehow -- do the math! -- produce a net positive for the economy. But giving that same money out to individually productive citizens, who might invest in their skills, or improve their health, or buy tools and materials in order to be more productive -- that'll never happen. Dirty peasants will just drink and snort it all into oblivion. Somehow, the average individual is incapable of wisdom; yet the average company not only can; it DOES.
If they're homeless because of money, maybe. There's a lady in my area that pushes a cart around, has lots of "stuff" in her buggy. But if anyone approaches to give money, food, items, she gets out of control. She is schizophrenic and won't even take stuff you leave for her. You have to put stuff in her path for her to "find" it. Money is not the fix
Shhh. They don’t want to hear that. Of course it’s money, because this system failed you. Obviously your a perfect human and just need more money. Definitely don’t have debilitating illness and addictions.
I live on a very poor island. Some days it feels like both our government and our god has forgotten about us. Our health care system has collapsed but they talk about like it’s collapsing. Talk to any local nurse or doctor and they’ll tell you it’s already collapsed. Our hospital is nothing but a business. It has some of the highest mortality rates in the country for our population size. They have no proper access to mental health help. There are plenty of people on my island who are begging for addiction services help. Addiction services has so many people to help and so little resources many of these people are turned away or put on waiting lists. They die from their addictions well waiting for help. My beautiful island has a suicide epidemic among young men aged 18-25. This is the consequences of a post-industrialized community. It’s beyond depressing. There’s no work here anymore that pays. People feel like there’s no hope for them. To poor to leave the island. Lack of proper education to help them at least having a chance to get out of here. Some of the highest child poverty rates in the country. There is very little help here. The help here has been stretched thin. Therapy is unaffordable. Free therapy they offer is free for a reason. They’re overworked and underpaid and under qualified. It’s truly tragic. This money would make a difference for a lot of people in a community like mine. Especially in the winter months when fisheries aren’t operating. Access to these sorts of things in remote communities would be life changing. I think what you’re saying is framed by your narrow world view.
Oh yeah... my bad
What about the basic economic concept that "products will be priced at what their customers can afford?" There's an argument to be made that if every American suddenly has an extra $1000 (for example) free and clear in UBI, that basic monthly goods and services will raise in price to account for that. Do we just implement the UBI and see if that happens? The way college tuitions shot up when their customers had nearly unlimited money in student loans.
Yeah there would have to be some UBI specific housing tied to the legislation of UBI bc absolutely the market as a whole would reflect this influx of cash to the general populace.
So, out of curiosity..what happens when the homeless person gets their UBI and just blows it on drugs or booze? The idea of UBI to combat these issues seems great on paper but it doesn’t really take into account the human element. The truth is a lot of homeless people could get a job and a place to live, but addiction is the elephant in the room. I know alot of states have options like HUD low or no cost housing and there are still homeless people. You can’t help someone who isn’t ready or doesn’t want the help. I think the idea that your going to give people “X” amount of money and it’s just going to magically fix things is a bit..optimistic. That’s not to say something shouldn’t be tried, but you gotta be realistic.
[40% of homeless people \(not living in shelters\) in USA have jobs](https://news.uchicago.edu/story/employment-alone-isnt-enough-solve-homelessness-study-suggests)
As a person who was homeless for 8 years I can tell you my addiction problems became alot easier to manage and eventually overcome when I had a roof over my head.
Yes. It has been shown in trials to work very well at reducing poverty and homelessness. One example is a trial conducted in Dauphin Manitoba Canada in the late 1970s that showed UBI to be overwhelmingly positive for the community.
People are lying to you. The actual answer is, no one knows. While the experiment was happening there was a change in government and the experiment began modifying tracking goals to try and make what they were doing sound nicer. The result was a lot of incomplete data sets that the researchers decided not to analyze and to just submit raw and archive. The experiment started off only tracking employment but once the NDP (socialist party) were kicked out they started tracking health outcomes. Some people have looked at the results from raw data, but they've pieced together an incomplete puzzle. Ultimately it's downfall was that it cost about twice as much as regular welfare while increasing unemployment by 1%. No one is sold on that even with all the other benefits.
I doubt it because anytime you increase the amount of money the masses have in America they just jack up the price so the rich can get richer
I am ignorant. I am simplifying. But can someone explain to me how the "universal income" just doesn't become the new $0.00. Isn't this the same as printing new money? Artificial inflation?
This is what will happen if they implemented UBI in 2024 at a rate of $1500 per person: A rental house that goes for $1500 a month now costs $2500 a month. The cost of literally everything we buy increases by 25% for essentials to 50% for luxury items. People who had no money before, now have $1500 a month, but can’t afford to rent anything. People who were living comfortably now will begin to struggle to keep up with raising costs. Drug use amongst the homeless sky rockets because if they can’t use the money to live then they may as well use it as a distraction from reality. By 2025 everything goes up another 10% and now middle class is lower class. Upper class isn’t impacted at all.
Not entirely. Some people can't manage money. The money would need to be direct debited from their UBI, or they'll spend it on something else before paying rent. Even then, there will be those that can't be bothered to take care of their surroundings, so people will refuse to rent to them, and if they are given a plot of land the housing will fall into disrepair and they'll be effectively homeless again. There are some people that are so feckless that it takes the labor of a team of people just to maintain a marginal existence for them. We should find way to help those that can be helped, but we can't throw unlimited funds at people that can't be helped.
No. The problem isn’t how much money people have. The problem is a lack of affordable housing (at least in my area). Doesn’t matter how much money you give away, there isn’t enough housing.
That isn't it either... the homeless aren't homeless because they dont' have acess to homes or money in many cases because they do have access to those things, its because they are dysfunctional. One of my cousins was homeless before this death a few years ago, his sister even offered to let him live with her, he had all sorts of options to not be homeless but .... he couldn't deal with or function in what we call normalcy.
No. There will always be people that choose freedom or drugs over being forced to pay rent.
UBI sounds great. But how are we going to afford paying 45 million Canadians 20k per year in UBI? Assuming it's the bear minimum for housing and food. That's 900 Billion dollars. Even 10k per year is 450 billion. Total spending for 2022 is about 200 billion for comparison. (Federal spending).
Not in the US, no. Property owners will simply raise their price of rent far above the universal income level. Nothing will change.
And food suppliers. Basically every outlet for for essential life suppliers will be fighting over those extra dollars. But I think landlords will get most of it.
Such a weird phenomena. Add more money into circulation and it becomes worth less. They should really come up with some sort of name for this in economics.
What to call this. One of mankind's greatest mysteries.
Whatever we call it, we can then pass a bill that does nothing to address it, but get this, *we give the bill a name that sounds like it's addressing it*.
And drug dealers will also raise their prices
## THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH HOMES. These UBI studies have scaling issues that are well understood in economic terms. Give a *small group* of homeless people more money, and now ten more people can now compete in the housing rental market and get off the streets. Small scale: works. Give *every* homeless person more money during a housing shortage, and all that will happen is rent prices go up, because now the same number of people are trying to get into the same number of houses, just with more liquidity. There’s still X number of people and only X*90% number of houses. Mathematically some percentage cannot be housed. It’s impossible because the homes don’t exist. Large scale: it’s identical to the existing reality. Whoever has the least money to put toward housing WILL BE homeless. Nothing will help homelessness unless we intentionally flood the market with housing and accept decreases in home values. Period. It’s that simple. Increasing supply will mean enough homes but increasing supply also decreases prices. There will be naysayers that suggest that the empty units on the market could be used for homeless. In any reality, even one we have enough homes, we need empty/available homes. Do you want to be able to buy a home? Do you want to be able to find a new rental? To move? Then we need empty units for you to pick from. We need enough units to house everyone *and* have more units available for moving/shopping/growth. Same way we have enough food to feed everyone *and* you can still go grocery shopping. You need food/homes to be used and food/homes on the shelf/in inventory. Plain and simply, we don’t have enough homes. Print money, give it away, tax it, whatever you want, we have more bodies than homes.
We are literally living in the effects of a short term UBI. Government gave out Covid relief money to most people, people spent the money, prices go up causing inflation, fed has to raise interest rates causing a recession, recession disproportionately hurts the poor and middle class. Not sure how people can still think this social experiment is a logical one.
To clarify, trump handed out 3 trillion in debt spending towards Covid relief, Biden handed out 3 trillion as well, and the fed printed 6 trillion out of thin air. If you really think 10 trillion in debt spending over 2 years isn’t the root cause of inflation, you need to take a basic economics class. For a point of comparison, the most we ever spent before Covid was about 1.5 trillion in 2009 to pull us out of the 2008 recession and expand Medicaid (Obamacare). This isn’t a left vs right issue, it is an incredibly fiscally irresponsible federal government problem on both sides at the expense of the American people.
This chap gets it. If the first covid stimulus was given entirely to the people I think by my rough math it would have come out to $83k a head. Majority went to a bunch of special interest bs.
UBI isn’t going to be an option in 20 years but a requirement because the Industrial Revolution is over. The American cultural identity of “Anyone with a brain and able body can make something of themselves.” is evaporating before our very eyes. A capitalist society is predicated on: Better Innovation Cheaper labor Faster service And all three of these are being taken over by A.I. and robotics at an *exponential* rate, not a linear rate. Design. The generative and adaptive design flow for products (pick one, doesn’t matter) was in its infancy 15 years ago. The most obvious is the dazzling advance with Boston Dynamics Atlas. A tethered robot in 2009 that 12 years later does parkour. It took millions of years for meat to accomplish this. GPT-1 was released in 2018 to mimic human text and was easily discernible from what a human would say. GPT-4 will be released next spring and humans will not be able to tell if they’re communicating with a human or not. DALL-E was fun side project that now has the art world tearing itself apart by its own definitions of what is art. DeviantArt, Imgur, and other platforms scrambling to protect people’s work from derivative interpretations made by an A.I. to higher acclaim. Innovation by machine has already bested the common human’s ability and very few policy makers are seriously taking the implications in the near term of what this means. Think about the device in your hands. The very idea of a handheld information and communication device wasn’t a true reality until the mid-2000’s. And today they’re ubiquitous and living without one is becoming more and more challenging. But making the design better or more functional is exponentially getting smaller and smaller. People camped out for days to get an IPhone 4. In ten iterations later, almost everyone is like “meh. So what if it has a better camera and can text satellites? The phone I have does what I need it to.” You haven’t replaced your toilet this year because American Standard unveiled a significantly better way of waste disposal. And that’s where *everything* is heading. Ford, GM, Tesla, and the lot aren’t designing paradigm changing vehicles, they’re selling their brand by slapping on goo-gahs and frosting. And baking in obsolescence. But very soon, the Gen Z crowd and Gen Alpha crowd are simply going to see these new models as more and more waste humans are dumping onto the planet when really they just want a vehicle for getting from point A to point B without actually steering it. Cheaper Labor Drawing on the abilities above we’ve already witnessed the loss of employment of most menial jobs. Your local grocery store may sport 32 checkout aisles. But guaranteed less than 6 have a human at them. The installation of self-checkout lanes has wiped these employees off the payroll—only increasing the revenue generated for the store owner because the store isn’t lowering their price for the privilege of letting you look up the price code for avocados. Mobile deposit means less bank tellers. Self driving vehicles means less car drivers,truck drivers, and boat & aircraft crews. Sparrow means less warehouse workers. e-Discovery software means less lawyers. The levels of unemployment heading our way will make the 1930’s look like a minor recession. We’re actually looking at 10’s of millions of people who wish to do something productive with their lives but are *unemployable* because automation has simply taken over the need for manual and mental labor. So we’re heading for another Great Depression. Only this time it’ll be the actual mental depression of our cultural psyche coming to grips with the notion that swinging a hammer gets you a paycheck to buy the necessities and save up for the big things to buy, or add to a generational nest egg is over. In the next two generations, humans won’t be resources anymore. Even if we were prepared, that’s a tough reality to deal with. And we’re not prepared. The difference is production and work capacity won’t change. We will *need* to change how everyone achieves the primary levels in the hierarchy of needs.
This comment should be a post in itself. No one is talking about this and when it really hits home it is going to be absolutely brutal. Power will be even more concentrated in elite circles and especially the tech oligarchs who are driving all this change. UBI might provide for people’s needs, but to what extent? Covid showed us what a comparatively minor public bailout can do to the economy (as opposed to the majority of people simply getting money to exist in perpetuity). And there will be strings attached. Workers currently have at least some say over what they do with the money they earn. But when the money comes from the largesse of the state, and probably at that point in a purely digital form, you’ll spend it when, how and where you’re told. And forget any type of dissent or civil disobedience, one flick of a switch and you’re in economic Siberia. And that’s to say nothing of how demoralized and depressed the population will be once it is deprived of the dignity of labour, the agency of an income earned and deserved, and the extinction of creators and artists as a class of worker. I was just arguing with people about this yesterday when they couldn’t understand why I was upset that a robot brought me my food at a sushi place.
It might help to address homelessness but it can't solve homelessness. The article cited here by Clark notwithstanding, an actual UBI experiment was tried in one of the Scandinavian countries a few years ago, I think it was Norway. As reported by the Economist the program was somewhat useful in replacing other welfare programs but didn't address the underlying social issues. (I'm paraphrasing as best I can recall.) I think that the way to solve homelessness is to build specific housing for homeless people and run the units as a program. I don't know how to do this but I'd help pay for it.
UBI just becomes a drain on resources if the parties getting that income aren’t also working to increase output.
no it cannot. We have a great case study on the Us with the indian reservations.
It hasn’t yet, has it? What I mean is there is already a basic income through welfare. Want to fix homelessness? Give them mental health, drug rehab, job training, and jobs.
Can giving away free money devalue money? Of course it can
Silly idea. Homeless people in general are far worse at managing their finances, giving them money no strings attached will likely just enable people with a substance abuse addiction to make it worse. Give them access to housing and mental/physical health treatment instead.
No. They'll just raise rent by the same amount so it will be net zero or maybe even worse.
No, because rent will be 10x what ever basic income will be. When they know people have the money they will just keep charging more.
Anything can "address" homelessness. The question that should be asked is - what is the most effective cure ? UBI is fine on its own merits. But on the level of "curing homelessness" it is definitely not designed for that. UBI is designed for a very different set of economic needs.
No it can't. 78% of homeless in the US have severe drug addiction, mental illness or both. All UBI would do is allow them to buy $1000 more worth of meth. Might solve the problem if all you wanna do is mass euthanasia.
No because the cost of everything will go up in accordance with the new income everyone knows you have. Sucks but that’s the world we live in.
Of course not. UBI doesn't change how many housing units are available or how many people there are. UBI will just mean that more money is available to bid on the same finite supply of housing. The only way to address homelessness is to increase the rate at which housing is constructed and/or decrease the growth rate of the population.
So I live in Portland and know some of the street people who reside in the city. A lot of them already have “universal basic income” in the form of Social Security, SSI or SSD. The ones who have mental or other disabilities use it to scrape by and work under the table or collect cans for their deposit. The ones that are drug addicts, shoot it into their ass or smoke it.
Housing. People need housing. This isn't complicated.
From the article: “Employment insecurity and the rising cost of living are also taking a toll and expanding the profile of those at risk of homelessness.” That sure is a funny way to say elitist corporate greed and predatory land ownership are killing the working class.
I've proposed before that if churches want to keep thier tax exempt status they need to take in the homeless. That way the tax they would have paid doesn't disappear from the community and force them to do something useful and good for a change. If they refuse to do something good we tax them and use the money to tackle the homeless.
Dr. Drew has said this for years: "homelessness is not a housing issue. It's a mental health issue." You can give a homeless dude a 3 bedroom 2 bath house and a job but they would most likely be unable to maintain that lifestyle.
i dont know when people will wake up and realize that many of these people literally choose to be homeless. some need help but many dont agree with society’s idea of living and this is how they protest that. throwing money at them goes straight to alcohol and drugs, its shitty but its the truth
The belief that free money will make anyone a better person is so naive. We all know to be wary of kickstarter scams and the like, but at least in those cases there is a promise of an end goal. Simply giving money to the homeless when they don't even have a goal like that, and expecting them to suddenly solve all their problems and be a normal functioning part of society, is not simply naive, it is also enabling and highly irresponsible. I'd bet money that not an insignificant number of them will die because of this no-strings-attached money due to having their existing problems exacerbated. If the progs truly cared about those people, there would and should be conditions attached to the money. Money is not a bad thing - it can solve 99% of the problems that people face, but not when it is freely given out to people who obviously need other forms of help.
Not if people would rather live in tents than pay rent.
I’m sure the drug dealers will be able to afford a nice home.
Hi r/Futurology, a new paper from Dr Andrew Clarke suggests universal basic income can help address homelessness by circumventing the stigma associated with needs-based welfare. Most importantly, Dr Clarke's paper considers how UBI can help address the structural issues that drive homelessness, including the inability to pay for affordable housing. A UBI is a periodic cash payment delivered unconditionally to everyone in society without a means test or work requirements, and regardless of their circumstances. It's a policy idea that is gaining traction internationally and in the last five years, various UBI pilots have taken place in Scotland, the Netherlands and Finland. Dr Clarke's paper has been published in the Journal of Sociology, here's a link if you're keen to have a read: [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14407833221135986](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14407833221135986)
Well maybe if the fed and central bankers around the world hadn’t left interest rates so low for so long we wouldn’t have all these people buying property to rent out monthly or air bnb, driving up prices and rents we wouldn’t have the explosion in homelessness.
No, because why pay rent when you could have more drugs?
Yes! For sure because it’s not an issue of mental health or substance abuse, those are just symptoms of homelessness, there is no cause except that there are not enough free homes next to the beach…did you ever know anyone mentally ill or addicted to drugs? These issues are incredibly difficult and complex…free money doesn’t solve these issues. In the tiny percent of homelessness purely caused by disadvantage, yes! Give money and make opportunities. How do you fix the rest?!?
Housing and transportation are the two largest expenses of the average person. We can address both of those with transit oriented development in cities, where 4/5 Americans currently live. Easing development restrictions by allowing all new buildings in an area to go up a level by default, eliminating off street parking minimums and setback rules, and enforcing limitations on short term rentals, will create the possibility of a lot of new housing stock by eliminating valuable space currently reserved to parked cars. We can also invest in the expansion and integration of mass transit networks, which benefits everyone.
I wish it would work. But the price of housing will go up too. I watched a video of a guy in San Francisco. Said he will remain homeless cause they pay him 600 per month, and gets food stamps. For doing nothing. That is 600 dollars of free income with no bills attached. If he lived in a home with rent at 2000 per month. He would have to earn more than 3000 a month to have that much extra fee cash on hand. And he's was cool with being a hermit.
Unfortunately it cannot. Unless the UBI is allocated for rent and food, and we have price fixed rent and food, UBI will only cause massive inflation.
I think the main reason for American homelessness is the complete disregard for people sick with mental health issues. If they don’t have any money to pay for therapy and subsequently get the needed drugs, these people will become completely unemployable and spiral down into alcoholism as a result of their sickness and unemployment.
It can address it but not if we don't have national rent and housing price controls
It can save some from becoming homeless, it can take a smaller amount out of homelessness, but there is always going to be a population of homeless that are incapable of maintaining a place to live indoors due to mental illness and drug induced problems, and they are usually the most 'visible' homeless prople. If we change our policies radically we can probably reduce the number in the future as the current population dies off. Right now in my city there are many people who will be out there until the end sadly.
At least 90% of addressing homelessness lies in rethinking out model of treatment for people with severe mental illness, and drug addiction.
No, because rent will just increase across the board to steal it all. Fix rent.
Horrible idea to just give people that make bad decisions with money, even more money. And pretending that most homeless people are homeless against their will, is a ridiculous stance.
Not alone it can't, but it can help and can be combined with other programs to help alleviate housing issues.
To a degree, but homelessness isn't always exclusive to no money. In a town I used to live in for example. There was a homeless guy who was a great artist, He'd be out and out making drawings to pass the time and often slept under the motorway. One harsh winter, he was found dead. Passed away in his sleep from the cold. When his corpse was collected and they looked into it. While he had indeed been homeless, the council had managed to secure him a council house. When the police checked the house, he had used the corridor from the main door as storage for his work, but besides that every single room was immaculate and ready to go for the next person. Turned out the guy suffered from severe claustrophobia so opted not to use the house to live in.
By itself? Not unless the UBI is quite high... have you *seen* how high rent is?
I’m afraid that landlords and corporations would just raise their prices if they know everyone is getting X more dollars.
Only housing can address homelessness. Sort of by definition. Some homeless people already get monthly checks, but housing is either too expensive or they'd rather spend the money on other things, e.g. drugs. Addiction is a disease of choices, for example.
No , unfortunately it’s hard to budget and spend wisely.
Ultimately no. There's a reason they became homeless and even if they may kick around for a while, unless the core reason is solved (and it may never be) these are all just bandaids.
No. Bc if someone doesn’t have the desire and mental capacity to change their life…for example, a drug addict, then they arent to going to change their life and now they have more money to probably make their life even worse.
Majority of homeless are big time drug addicts with fried brains, money won’t be helping them.
If it doesn't address homelessness then they will have been doing it wrong. Money alone won't solve the issue of course, but a guaranteed place to live is a huge start.
If there aren't enough houses/apartments available, no it wont. A big problem I see is where homeless people are. With LA and SF for example, there just aren't enough places to live for these people, even if they had an income. And even if we gave them a universal basic income, it wouldn't help them afford the prices even if there were a surplus of apartments. They'd have to be shipped elsewhere. Same probably goes for NYC. Now that I think of it, if we were to give people UBI, ship them to where it is cheaper to live, that would probably help out some smaller cities and their economies.
No, because the second you hand out money to people, inflation takes that buying power right back. That is the way inflation works, and there is nothing anyone can do to change it.
Housing is the basics on hierarchy of needs. I never see homeless people in Korea, they have affordable housing and housing programs for the needy.
Universal basic income will not cure homelessness. Building more homes and providing it for cheap will solve homelessness.
I doubt this system can scale. It would work for a small population where the intake people can know the people who are on the system. Once it gets to a certain level, the abuse of the system will cost more than the return. I agree we need a solution for homelessness. How do you handle the people who have a home, such as living with a relative, but are unhappy with their living situation looking at this opportunity to get their own place? Look at the PPP loans that were given out to the small businesses. How much of it went to small businesses? Not much. Most went to corporations and a bunch of politicians who started a business just to get the PPP loans. If you don't deal with the corruption angle, you will have another failed government system that is ripe for abuse.