Zhao says having data on how people who did get the money actually spent it is something she thinks will help counteract stereotypes, increase empathy and potentially get skeptics and the public on board with the idea of providing cash transfers.
Now that the study is complete, the plan is to replicate it and expand it to other cities in Canada and the U.S.
The study ignored people with addictions, people with mental illness, and street entrenched (chronically homeless with nowhere else to go) individuals.
I think what they did was good and is encouraging, but it kind of dilutes its own message that “Homeless people are not what you think!” by ignoring the people who are what everyone thinks of.
Mate…
If we can show that early intervention prevents things from getting so bad we can’t fix them…
That’s still a good thing.
What you’re saying is like “we can’t help people society failed a decade ago, so why help people society just started failing?”
Stopping an issue from getting worse is better than ignoring it
I think the study seemed to want to change the stereotype so I think the parent comment has a point. I would be interesting to see what percentage of people make up those excluded groups. The study mentions it is low but don’t provide numbers. Also, the opposition to current social service argue that the recipients should get drug tested and have jobs to receive them so this seems to support that argument. It would be interesting to hear what Zhao used to exclude people from the study and what could be done to help the outliers.
“People in general don’t trust those in homelessness. We think that when we give homeless people money they’re going to squander it on drugs and alcohol. That’s a deeply ingrained distrust and I think it’s unfair and it’s not true,” Zhao told CTV News
just to clarify, the study provides numbers, it’s just the article that does not
45% of participants were excluded for a score >= 6 on the DAST-10 drug abuse screening test, 13% were excluded for score >= 20 on the AUDIT alcohol use disorders identification test, and 26% were excluded for psychiatric symptoms according to the colorado symptom index
in total 229 of 732 participants passed all screening criteria (additional criteria: age 19 to 65, homeless for less than 2 years, canadian citizen or permanent dresident)
Thanks for the info! 500 being excluded out of 732 doesn’t sound like a small amount. It appears to almost prove the stereotype.
No, if we ignore it, surely it will just go away!
Just make homelessness illegal guys, c’mon, so simple
Put spikes on everything for good measure! If they can’t sleep they’ll be forced to like, stop being homeless or something.
I feel like we are killing ourselves trying to solve the “few bad breaks but totally capable of participating” type of homelessness so that we can ignore the “I will never fit into your society” type of homeless. The solutions for the latter are much harder, both morally and financially.
It’s also politically expedient. The right loves the “worthy homeless bootstrap story” and the left loves that you can blame that homelessness on failures of capitalism. Nobody likes involuntarily committing people to long term inpatient care at public expense.
Some people get a really bad dice roll. Ignoring that doesn’t make it go away. It isn’t fair and we like stuff to be fair.
Or they focused upon what they could potentially help with the resources they had as opposed to larger systemic issues which their resources pale in comparison to. One of those two.
Yeah so then it’s not a study, it’s just philanthropy.
Nope. It is a study of the outcome.
It’s important to note that a housing-first approach is the gold standard for care. Getting people off the street into a safe, stable, living environment then allows everything else to follow.
If handing out cash gets that to happen, hey, it’s money we’ll spent. But I’m guessing… just handing a wad of cash doesn’t help as much as we might think- even if that is a few months rent.
Most places require prior addresses and such.
It’s a multifaceted problem and will require multiple solutions to address. Those are always the most difficult solutions because they’re expensive up front and may not show results immediately.
But we find no problem in handing out corporate welfare to banks and oil companies to the tune of billions of dollar per year.
It excluded people’s stereotypes about homeless people and showed how much of a difference $7,500 can make in the lives of most homeless people.
Tackling stigma is an issue but really wasn’t the purpose of the study.
I just wanted to say this is the kind of comments that make Lemmy better than reddit! I had to dig to the very bottom of the reddit post for someone to point this out versus this being the top comment on Lemmy.
Note: I am all for helping homeless people, but excluding information in the title makes this seem like ‘if we give every homeless person $7,500 we can solve homelessness!’ I wish that was the case, but homelessness is a much more complicated issue
I think what they did do in the study was great. They found that the vast majority of homeless people are there because of temporary circumstances, and that money is a direct fix for many people.
But the conclusion they drew is a bit simplistic. Presumably they will need to try other interventions in the groups not studied - such as addiction programs for those struggling with addictions - to fully serve this population.
Here’s the thing … we don’t actually do anything to help unhoused people so why not try something like this? Too bad for us that we make money more important that human life.
40+ years ago some economists got together and created a study on guaranteed income. It worked, but unfortunately no one continued it because we’ve become so entrenched in the ideology of Reagan/Thatcher (article here).
They also mention that the majority of homeless aren’t that. So this is a nuanced story I think. We may be able to help the majority of the homeless simply by giving them money and/or housing. But for the ones suffering from addiction, mental illness, or entrenched homeless, this won’t be a magic bullet. It will probably take drug and mental health counciling. It probably won’t completely get rid of homeless, and the ones it won’t help are the most visible and most problematic.
But we can’t let perfect be the enemy of good. And we already know our current approach is not even to the level of good.
EDIT: Grammar
They also mention that the majority of homeless aren’t that.
Yes, but the majority of visible homeless are.
Did you read the next part as well?
“Still, Zhao says having data on how people who did get the money actually spent it is something she thinks will help counteract stereotypes, increase empathy and potentially get skeptics and the public on board with the idea of providing cash transfers.”
right, but its kinds weird to say "lets give these almost-destitute people money in the hopes that it will create empathy to help those that are actually destitute’… like, were So close!
and honestly, watching these programs for a bit now… its not necessarily the exact resources (money/shelter) you give people with these problems. its the social support network you create around them that really lifts them up. the only way out of these pits are continual, supportive human contact
I don’t think it’s possible to live on the streets and not end up with either a mental health issue or some form of dependency as a coping mechanism.
Yeah, it’s already hard enough not to struggle with mental health as is, even in materially good conditions, and then you add onto that losing everything and being forced to live on the streets with everything that brings? Maybe without even having any form for food security?
You are in a straight up survival situation. And it may be especially painful because you’re not alone out in the wilderness…
You’re surrounded by people. Many of whom are very well off. You are surrounded by people who have a home, food, luxuries, and everything, and you cannot have any of that. You’re not allowed to, by society.
It’s a goddamn nightmare. No fucking shit people struggle or just straight up break. I would too.
Those issues are a lack of Healthcare and not a lack of personal resources.
At the same time, is isn’t fair to say all homeless people are the same and lump someone who lost their job then had a medical emergency and can’t dig out with someone who is severely mentally ill with no access to the kind of mental health services they need. There are different reasons that people might be homeless and the way they handle an infusion of cash will sometimes differ. Yes, a person with a heroin addiction might spend money on heroin. Does that mean we should just let all homeless people rot?
Not at all. I think a good program would include financial assistance and social worker involvement for all homeless people, along with addiction resources for those who struggle with it.
It was shocking to me to find out that not only are most bankruptcy cases related to medical expenses, but that of those cases, most in fact did have insurance (in the USA).
My boss told me something that will always stay with me. I’ve never known him to lie, so I have no reason not to believe him - but nevertheless this is still a personal anecdote.
Anyway, he told me that when he was a teenager, his family had gotten to a point where they moved out of a bad neighborhood and into a rather affluent one thanks to some luck from his parents. He said he went to the store one day and a homeless person was outside the store, asking for help getting back on his feet. My boss, being the asshole teenager he was, told the person to, “just get a job.”
He said the person humbled him immediately, and told him in a very respectful, but firm manner, that he lost his wife and son due a car wreck the year before - that he went bankrupt and eventually homeless paying for their medical bills while they lived, and for their funerals when they died.
My boss tells this story to our new-hires when he can. He typically says that all this person needed was for someone to believe in them and give them another chance, because no one truly helped them when they needed it most.
I’m assuming your boss offers you decent health insurance, right?
Actually, yes. This is one of the best health plans I have used. It could be better, it could be cheaper, but I am more than pleased with it and had a few different options to choose from.
90% of sob stories you get from gas station bums are absolute bullshit. Some of them are incredibly good liars because their cash supply depends on it. I’m sure some of them are “just trying to get back on their feet” so I’ll give out food to people who need it, but I will never give out cash.
Maybe, maybe not. I can’t control what others do, but I can control what I do. I don’t want to enable someone, but I also know for some that money is exactly what is needed. So, I do my best to judge the situation and act accordingly.
I heard a lot of them when I lived in Toledo. It’s especially disappointing when the same guy forgets your face and feeds you a completely different elaborate bullshit story
I view it as performance art. Someone could play music or perform Shakespeare on the street to make me feel something, and I would throw money in their hat. In this case, the feeling is altruism, and they’ve earned their money with the performance.
I read the beginning of your post and was expecting some life changing story. Had my full attention just to be disappointed. Nothing special or profound about your bosses story. Thats routine USA. Perhaps i have become desensitized. I wouldn’t repeat that story again, it means nothing. I certainly didn’t have an epiphany.
Who are you to say it means nothing - I find value in it, so I will share it. The point is to not judge someone at face-value because of the circumstances you are seeing them in. Everyone is going through something, so we should all try to help others when we can - just as we will need help with something eventually.
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You clearly haven’t met any one of the enormous amount of people in the US that need to hear this story and don’t find it as obvious as you do
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As a Canadian this is what I fear for my American friends. While I have heard lots of people whine about how people “die on wait lists” in the Canadian system that really hasn’t been my experience. While yes things like joint surgeries and electives can take a while I have had relatives of friends flown via helicopter ambulance from small towns for month long stays for serious stuff at the drop of the hat at no cost to the family.
Anything seriously life threatening has gone into treatment immediately. Hospice stays are mostly covered so compassionate end of life facilities cost half of what a dirt cheap hotel does. The cost to the taxpayer for healthcare is, determined by tax bracket is tiny. If I make $80,000 it costs me about $350 for the year.
Because it’s a drain on the government’s bottom line there’s a lot of harmful food additives that are banned in Canada because the ethos is that it is unlawful for businesses get to make profit at the expense of consumer health if people can not be easily informed of the health risks. The Covid Vaccine was also given a lot more push society wide because the beggaring and allotment of resources away from the healthcare system for preventable incidents directly effects everyone.
Deciding that healthcare is a right has society wide advantages. People will do anything to stay alive a little longer including beggar themselves so it makes sense that adding business interests into that market to jack up the prices for profit is just unethical imo.
I am surprised it led to only 99 days fewer in homelessness compared to the control group that didn’t receive money. But I suppose it just shows how fucked the current housing market is.
$2,000 for 200 square feet: TikTok of Vancouver rental raises hackles
You can see how that money can disappear after a few months, not because the person made bad choices but because of how predatory corporate landlords are. These are tiny apartments, in what was previously the affordable area of town, (which is still a sketchy area but now also unaffordable).
Yeah but if you have no job and no home, it is kinda the perfect time to move to a more affordable state/city.
That is true… and also until recently I didn’t know how crazy expensive even just moving yourself is, either.
A bus from Vancouver to Lethbridge (where it’s $1000/mo rent in places more spacious) is $250. Probably could barely get half of that in a month of begging… There is hitchhiking and walking, and for one homeless guy I met he told me it took over a month to go that distance.
Most homeless people have employment lapses that make it hard to find work, even with an address and fresh clothing. Aswell as possibly still having debts that led them to lose housing in the first place.
In other words, $7,500 is a great start, but as you said, $7,500 doesn’t go far with recent cost of living inflation. And as I mentioned, getting back on your feet isn’t easy because employers aren’t quick to hire the recently homeless.
It won’t significantly affect as the stereotype is for justification of cruelty and not because of logical error.
Not necessarily. I think most people actually don’t know these things.
And you think folks even know stereotypes they don’t care about? The stereotype only exists as a thing in the minds of People that want them to be true.
Yeah sure. I know plenty of stereotypes that I don’t have an incentive to be true.
Those are sterotypes you care about. I said nothing about incentive to be true. Perhaps keep your words in your own mouth rather than claiming they are in another’s? The ones wanting it to be true are the ones you learned them from and only because you cared.
Wtf are you talking about? No they aren’t, yes you did, and how about you learn to communicate properly instead of getting mad when people interpret your unreadable word salad the wrong way?
Tell yourself whatever lies you need to feel better. Focus upon your own emotions rather than project them on others.
You’re delusional and I’m going to stop talking to you, bye
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Fair point. However one of the driving factors for addiction is loneliness. For a lot of drug 7500 dollars is to much drugs… So what to do with the rest? That’s where the change begins. Once someones perceived basic needs are met higher level needs can be focused on including human interaction. With human interaction other forces come into play and get the person back on track.
Drugs are only a problem if you don’t guard the frontier
An interesting statement, I can’t say if it’s true or not. Human psychology is a strange thing, and frankly I don’t have the life experience to say if that is true all the time.
If nothing else, A fact I can say Is “diversity Is both a strength and a weakness. For every Lead liver person, there is someone that gets drunk one one beer. Who is right In there opinion of alcohol? Each knows what is right for them, and that is all you can worry about, what is right for you”
Oh the ‘throw money at it’ solution to the problem that everyone online loves so much.
These solutions never work, btw. But let’s keep ‘experimenting’
These solutions never work
Source?
Welfare was supposed to do this already. What welfare has turned into is a perpetual poverty situation for millions of people.
To the point where people are disincentivized to work, and perpetually stay on welfare.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/19/what-the-data-says-about-food-stamps-in-the-u-s/
That link argues against your claim.
In general, most Americans ages 16 to 59 who aren’t disabled must register with their state SNAP agency or employment office; meet any work, job search or job training requirements set by their state; accept a suitable job if one is offered to them; and work at least 30 hours a week. Failure to comply with those rules can disqualify people from getting SNAP benefits.
In addition, nondisabled adults without dependents must either work or participate in a work program for 80 hours a month, or participate in a state workfare program. If they fail to do so, they can only receive SNAP benefits for three months out of any 36-month period.
We all know how this works out in reality. 40+ million people are on food stamps and the graduation rate is much lower than the 80-100% that everyone expects from programs like this
We all know how this works out in reality.
LOL. You present evidence, someone quickly reads the citation and shows you it proves the obvious. So you throw your own evidence under the bus for an “everyone knows” argument. How pathetically transparent.
I’m not going to convince you that throwing money at things doesn’t solve any of the problems it promises to. That’s a journey you’ll make on your own as you grow up and start realizing this as you get into adulthood
Reagan’s racist ghost, is that you? I haven’t heard a good “welfare queens” argument in a while.
You must be hanging out in the wrong places then
We have very few homeless people in Germany and we do have welfare. Where do you think the US failed?
Voting democrat, mostly
The actual answer is having a corrupt, monotone bipartisan system.
Thanks for your qualified and thoughtful insight /s
The problems you mentioned are created by the welfare system itself.
Welfare cliffs are what disincentivizes work. It’s not that “having welfare disincentivizes work”, its “getting a few more hours, or accepting a small promotion, makes them ineligible for thousands of dollars of benefits”.
It’s ‘throwing money at the problem’ doesn’t work. It never does.
Democrats only ever have one solution “throw money at it until it goes away”
It never does.
Did you miss up above where I asked you for a source for this?
This whole interaction is hilarious.
We did a study of what happens when you do X.
No, that’s wrong. X never works.
What is your study? Why do you say that? We did a study and it worked.
Because it is known. X never works.Honestly, I would be 100% open to it if you made some kind of argument for why some specific social program is actually making things worse when you study it, because I do think that happens. But, just falling back on thought-terminating cliches like “Welfare never works” and “Democrats only ever have one solution” and refusing to examine them further is not going to bring you any better ability to understand the world, and now you’re over here trying to export those malfunctioning thought patterns to other people, and surprise surprise, they’re not being friendly to your efforts.
What solutions do democrats have that don’t end up just as funding?
Nice deflection to a different topic. This whole story is about Canada, nothing about the US Democratic party. If for some reason you do want to talk about the effectiveness of “Democratic” fiscal policy versus “Republican” fiscal policy, I’m happy to do that.
Like I said, I’m actually fine having a good-faith discussion about either one of these topics if you’re into that, but if you’re just interested in tossing little one-sentence quips at me and ignoring relevant things I’m saying or questions that I’m asking, then IDK what the point would be. Surely you can see that, right?
I’ve read at least 8 of your posts on this topic. Not one time have you put out any ideas that you think would work. You keep saying that throwing money at it doesn’t work (without any citations) and that democrats are bad. Not once have you put out a different idea or said anything that WOULD help.
I can tell you from very personal experience that the welfare system does help people and makes lives better. You aren’t interested in that, though. You just have an agenda and will dismiss any story as an anecdote and will dismiss any study as biased or incomplete. You won’t actually link to anything that supports your position or even state a position outside of “welfare bad.”
What kind of source do you need? Welfare was created to get people on their feet and off of welfare, not for a quasi-UBI program that it’s turned into.
If welfare was working, you’d see less and less people receiving it. That’s not what’s happening though. There are more people on welfare now than there was 50 years ago.
The war on poverty has been a failure. Time for a new approach
Why would I put more than the minimal amount of effort into any post on lemmy, knowing that 100 communist teenagers are just going to reply “lol wrong, you fascist” and downvote?
If you want to debate me, I’d rather do that in real time on another program like discord. But lemmy is just a left wing commie shithole
Hey, substantive statements! Okay, I can rock with this.
“Welfare” is a very broad term. It can refer to anything from unemployment benefits, to SNAP, to this story about one-time aid specifically for homeless people in Canada (which is very far removed from anything resembling “welfare” as it’s commonly implemented in the US), to section 8 housing or housing assistance, and lots more. There are so many goals and implementation details with varying levels of success that I don’t think it makes sense to apply any kind of blanket logic to the whole collection, let along to apply the logic of “this one-time homeless benefit is welfare -> welfare never works -> end of discussion.”
Why would I put more than the minimal amount of effort into any post on lemmy, knowing that 100 communist teenagers are just going to reply “lol wrong, you fascist” and downvote?
Yeah, I 100% agree with this, having been on the receiving end of it myself plenty of times. I don’t think I’m doing that to you in any regard, but I do get the frustration with the overall state of discourse here (including from “the left”) and reluctance to start any kind of real discussion. All I can say is if that bothers you, you gotta be part of the solution instead of starting to do the same thing yourself.
If you want to debate me, I’d rather do that in real time on another program like discord.
Lol not interested. You’re on Lemmy, and you said specific things on Lemmy, and I replied. If you’re suddenly not interested in having a discussion on Lemmy, then I won’t try to force you into it I guess.
Huh, I looked through your article. It didn’t mention anything about people staying on food stamps in order to not work. Given that grocery costs have sky rocketed in recent years, I hardly think that the $300 some odd makes people want to not work, especially coupled with the fact that non-disabled people are required to take any reasonable job and work 30 hours a week. Interesting source for your comment.
When has welfare ever made people richer?
I forgot the point of welfare was to make people rich as opposed to being a last resort safety fence.
I agree, and I would also add that depending on how it’s done, it can actually benefit the economy (“make people richer”) quite a lot. I thought about replying to them with this whole typed out explanation of how the social safety net of the New Deal, over the next few decades, transformed the US economy from one in which a handful of people kept all the money and everyone else was starving into a hugely more powerful economy where the people involved in running the whole operation were invested in the whole operation’s success and permitted to share (a little bit) in the fruits of that success. I’d call that, in the specific way that it was done, a pretty defining success that impacted the whole arc of the 20th century.
Honestly the devil is in the details, and it’s also possible erect what was supposed to be a social safety net which actually makes things worse, and if someone wanted to make a coherent argument for why this or any other specific thing was an instance of that, I’d be fine to talk about that. But I’ve been progressively learning on Lemmy that when someone gives a one-sentence non sequitur partisan response, taking it at face value and trying to be detailed and factual in your response is a mug’s game. The number of people who would genuinely be interested in that conversation seems pretty upsettingly small.
I don’t disagree that building a system that creates dependence and de-incentivises personal responsibility and opportunity can be a bad thing, however, I do feel that raising the floor can only be a good thing. I read some study a few years ago about how simply providing childcare and healthcare for people in a bad situation immediately changes their entire situation- suddenly they can work a normal job, not pay out the ass for childcare, and begin to actually better their lives and start saving money. People can then begin to be real contributing members of the economy instead of being trapped in endless “never enough to pay the bills” cycles.
A family member of mine had to quit a job because of harassment years ago and found herself ineligible for any kind of unemployment or welfare benefits because she received $50 a month in child support from an ex husband- the paltry amount of social service she would have received would have been just enough to pay rent and food for her two kids, but nope, that $50 meant she could get nothing. I can’t imagine how stressful that must have been trying to borrow money from family and wondering how she was going to eat and ever get a job to pay it back.
It worked out in the end because family helped out, but what if she was like many and had no one to lean on like that? She could have been homeless.
Yes, agreed. The current system in the US is so far from economic justice that it’s hard to even talk about particular details of how to improve it, because the whole thing is such a gilded-age disaster.
I sorta sympathize with this dude who’s railing against “welfare,” because there is a good point there. I don’t think the goal should be just giving money whenever they seem like they need it. However, your point is equally well-taken; if someone’s just fucked, then turning them out on the street maybe along with their family definitely isn’t the answer. I keep bringing up the New Deal because I feel like that’s pretty close to the answer. You can have a job if you want to work. The government is going to out-and-out create a whole bunch of jobs doing stuff that really badly needs doing, and if you want one of them, let’s fuckin’ get to work. Having a system where the majority of “jobs” are pretty low paying, miserable on a day to day level, and not doing much of anything for anybody involved, is the problem. Then on top of that, if something outside your control changes, you might get turned out on the street, or maybe we give you this minimal handout. Doing that handout seems, to me, better than not, but the problem goes a lot deeper.
There’s a bunch of work to be done. We need to improve education in this country, we should be trying to mitigate the apocalyptic damage that climate change is going to cause, we badly need to fix the roads and bridges and electrical infrastructure, stuff like that. There’s no shortage of real problems to work on. The problem is that the system doesn’t do anything to match up the huge population that wants to have a worthwhile job, with the massive piles of resources (wages) our technological efficiency makes available, with the massive amount of work to be done. It seems like we want everyone to just keep going to their office admin or retail jobs or whatever making $11/hr until we all sink into the boiling sea.
Since it allowed the single mom of a very close friend of mine to feed her kids, one of whom was able to study and get into college, who got a great job and is now rich.
Are you calling what’s being done in this story welfare? Because if so, I can cite this time.
Since always. Teaching man to fish is cheaper than providing fish for him every day or whatever they say.
Have you heard about this place called Europe? Look it up. And while you’re at it, look up how they handle policies related to financial equality while keeping high productivity and very prosperous societies.
We just prefer to give welfare to big oil and banks than to individuals.
Flips page… alright the next experiment for a potential solution is whipping anyone that misses a rent or mortgage payment, but also installing outdoor hot-tubs on streets.
Hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahah
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