“They did not spend more money on alcohol or drugs, contrary to what people believe, and instead they spent the money on rent, food, housing, transit, furniture, a used car, clothes. It’s entirely the opposite of what people think they’re going to do with the money.”
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Unsurprisingly, when people are given enough money to make immediate, material improvements to their life, they do.
If you’re homeless and miserable, suffering psychological and/or physical pain, and someone gives you $20, the most immediate relief for that suffering is often escapism into things like drugs and alcohol. In situations of extreme distress, humans tend to favor solutions that immediately, if only temporarily, remove the stress. We see this behavior all across humanity.
So the thing you spend money on in that situation iis typically the thing that will, in your belief, most improve your short - and medium-term condition. Give them $20, they’ll get alcohol. Give them $500, warm clothes and other durable QOL improvements. $7500? A car. $50,000? Long-term shelter.
Sadly, this study isn’t telling us anything that psychologists and social workers didn’t already know :/
Ya but daddy and his bitches love dunking on the poors and their lack of personal responsibility.
Idea that *mentally ill junkies" are trying to get shelter, food, meds or transport is too painful to accept.
Vast majority of the country are Grade A bootlickers and without them, we ain’t moving forward.
It economics and business the same concept is referred to as “barriers to entry”.
Basically upfront costs, regulations, or social standards that have to be overcome prior to competing in a market.
For the homeless to re-enter the job market they need: a safe permanent address, appropriate clothing, adequate food, basic furniture (bed, table, etc), internet access & telephone, haircut/styling/grooming, and transportation for several months.
If they do not have these basics they are very unlikely be hired for a job.
$7,500 is enough in most regions to overcome these initial barriers.
If the barrier is drug abuse/mental health issues, giving them $7,500 will not work until those issues are dealt with.
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“The study did not include people who are street-entrenched or who have serious addictions or mental health issues”
Seems kind of disingenuous to leave out people who are addicted to alcohol or drugs. No, that’s not most of them, but yes that is some of them.
The study simple ignores them so how can one make conclusions like “contrary to what people believe” and “the opposite of what people think” without actually considering the subject in question
Maybe it’s ethics… Giving an addict that much money could cause an overdose or other serious harm.
I mean, a study of how non homeless people spend money would probably be skewed and ignore drug addicts too. Studies ignore outliers that would have an obvious affect on what’s being studied.
Are you wondering what a drug addict spends money on?
I’m wondering what is the percentage of homeless that are addicts or have mental health issues. You seem to be confident they are outliers, but what is the percentage? Is it 1%? 25%? 50%?
Seems like a logical fallacy to me without knowing that stat.
“According to SAMHSA, 38% of homeless people abused alcohol while 26% abused other drugs.” (These are overlapping statistics)
“Most research shows that around 1/3 of people who are homeless have problems with alcohol and/or drugs, and around 2/3 of these people have lifetime histories of drug or alcohol use disorders”
This means roughly 11% of homeless people started their abuse as a consequence of becoming homeless, while 22% of homeless people may have become homeless due to their substance abuse.
So you’d essentially be proposing that we don’t help 78% of all homeless people because the other 22% of them would misuse the money.
And that’s without even discussing the fact that many of those 22% could be rehabilitated if they’re provide with appropriate healthcare on top of the monetary benefits
So you’d essentially be proposing that we don’t help
Excuse me? I haven’t proposed anything. I’m simply asking questions because the headline/description seemed misleading to me and not adequately conveying the full story/situation. Purely from a math/stats/logic point of view
“unhoused”
LOL yeah, I’m sure this is a nonbiased study.
Unhoused is a common term used in official documents. It’s a much better definition than homeless.
Oh, shit, you think this might be secretly funded by big homeless?
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You could try looking into it at all. Study doesn’t use the term. But sure, create assumptions based on nothing. You know, like the folks that think homeless people will spend the money on something else.
I was going to post a comment saying how thankful I am we could leave the extreme and unabashed aporophobia over at Reddit but… uh, never mind.
Still pretty tame compared to the gems you’d find there I guess.
What, you think people involved in the study would just get their buddy who’s between places at a convenient time $7,500? That couldn’t be more than like, 10-15 of these people!
