UBI Cash Payments Reduced Homelessness, Increased Employment in Denver

Remember, we know how to address many of the world's problems, including poverty, homelessness, and climate change.

But those with capital in society choose not to.

Every single study on UBI finds that it is a good idea that benefits both the recipients and society as a whole, but because it contradicts the dominant ideology it can't be allowed to happen.

Similar experiments in Vancouver: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/30/canada-study-homeless-money-spending

Ontario: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/basic-income-mcmaster-report-1.5485729

Turns out, socialism ain't that bad eh?

Rent is only high because of artificial scarcity of real estate. The scarcity only exists because building new housing is decided neither by supply and demand nor central government planning, but by the people who accumulate more capital if housing isn't built.

1K a month is pretty trivial compared to the cost of all the public money used to punish them (e.g cops). Even if you don't care about the humanity aspect at all UBI makes sense just from a pure numbers perspective.

OK, so you're telling me that giving money to people who need it, is better than giving it to rich people?

I am Wage Slaves inner shocked pikachu. Same thing, just more sarcastic and massive eye brows.

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To be clear here, while they advocate for UBI this isn't really a study on the topic as much as it is on direct cash payments to the homeless. Which has been supported by tons of different research in Canada, London, so many places I can't even remember them all.

People without money mostly need money.

Somehow this is surprising and confusing... primarily to people who cannot imagine change.

"Those damn homeless and injuns get EVERYTHING for free"

-my racist and jaded ass coworker

Wow.

Can’t wait for this to never roll out nationwide at the Federal level.

I think my biggest problem with these tests (not the idea of UBI) is that they go entirely based on what the recipients say. There's not really any indication that fact checking is done to confirm they actually are living somewhere now, or they did get their cars fixed, etc.

I'm confident that the money helped, because obviously it would, but I wish we could get some actual solid data on how much it helped. The cynic in me believes that desperate people getting 1000$/mo will embellish how much it helps in order to keep getting the money, when in reality they need 1500$ or 2000$ to afford housing in Denver.

I'd love to show this to people who say "but lazy people will be getting paid for nothing" or "competition is human nature" that capitalists made the fuck up, but it'll probably go over their heads, or they'll conveniently say that the test was not done properly

the Pew Charitable Trust wrote in a recent analysis that research had "consistently found that homelessness in an area is driven by housing costs."

Well, yeah, and we can thank investors, landlords and capital funds for that. Housing in Denver is ridiculously expensive currently... and it was bad but not to this extent a few years ago. A house next door to me that was $250k and $1000 a month a few years ago is now $450 and $2100 a month.

“No shit”

I wonder if rent would go up if ubi became a thing

Poverty is a lack of money, that's it. Tax the rich, help the poor, grow the middle class.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The results, so far: Participants who were sleeping on the streets at the start of the experiment — now with more money in their pockets — said they were feeling safer, experiencing better mental health, and enjoying access to more stable and welcoming living arrangements.

An entrepreneur, he made his money off Wooden Ships — a clothing company that specializes in sweaters for women — and an investment in Tesla that skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic.

Commentary on homelessness often focuses on mental health and addiction, perceived as the chief drivers of a spike in people sleeping on the streets in cities from Sacramento, California, to Jacksonville, Florida.

But the Pew Charitable Trust wrote in a recent analysis that research had "consistently found that homelessness in an area is driven by housing costs."

While cautioning that this was only an interim six-month follow-up for what is a yearlong program, the researchers nonetheless found stark and encouraging changes in participants' material conditions.

That material gains were seen among all groups suggests at least some of the improvements may be attributable to something other than cash, such as increased access to other services during the study period (the researchers don't speculate).

The original article contains 835 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Who would pledge 10% of their income to distribute as basic income? There is no need to wait until politicians implement it. We can start immediately.

We tried ubi during lock downs Here and it not only failed catastrophically but our government had to give up on billions of dollars people aren’t eligible for it caused catastrophic nearly unrecoverable inflation and people are now walking away from their mortgages that they can no longer afford