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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
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.
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 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.
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
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.
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.
It isn't much of a shock to me.
My spouse has just had a two week stay at a local hospital due to a difficult to diagnose issue that started as "pain in leg" and escalated to "can't walk" in the space of a month. We have regular insurance, and the hospital bill after insurance so far is $4,000 but we know it's going to probably triple or more by the end of the entire process. The yearly "Maximum out of pocket" on our plan is $14,000 but there are many ways in which the OOP can be exceeded by, say, a doctor being involved who isn't in network, or a treatment the insurer doesn't cover.
We are "lucky", we have ways to cover the inevitable bill. If it had happened ten years ago, when my daughter was still an infant, when our finances were bleeding, my job was barely covering our debt payments, raised in part because of disorganization during the birth, etc, there's no possible way we could cover the bill that's coming.
I know people don't like the ACA being criticized because it's considered a well meaning attempt to fix the health care system, but here are the problems with it:
For most people, it had a net negative effect because of the skin-in-the-game mandate. This is a principle the ACA's writers signed up to early on to try to get right wingers to support the bill by massively increasing copays and deductibles. Suddenly an ER visit was no longer $100-500, but $1,500 or more. Doctors visits are up from $10 to $50-100. Specialists from $25 now to $75-100. These increases aren't inflation based, they're intentional policy. For a software developer like me, I can afford them. For someone working two low income jobs to support their family, a real "hard working American", it basically makes healthcare unaffordable and unreachable. And all because some swivel eyed ideologue thinks that when you're lying unconscious bleeding out on the pavement in front of the car that hit you, you'll save the system money by using your smartphone to call the lowest cost ambulance service in your area.
The ACA mandated a "maximum profit" as a percentage of premiums insurance companies are allowed to make, while coupling it with no effort to make insurance companies non-profits (ie not beholden to investors.) The result is that insurers have to intentionally negotiate higher healthcare prices with their providers! No, seriously! Because regular public companies like health insurers have to increase profits every year, and the only way to increase profits if you can't increase margins or customer base is to increase your supplier costs so you can increase your own prices.
And the cynical part of me says they knew this but didn't care. The two obsessions were with "pre-existing conditions" and "bankruptcies", but these are both sides of the same coin. People were facing huge medical bills because their insurers didn't cover them and bankruptcies were the result. And bankruptcies hurt... banks. And banks seemed to be what they cared about most of all in 2009-2012. They did nothing to stem the foreclosure crisis, for example. Maybe, ultimately, what the ACA was about was protecting banks, creating an environment not where bankruptcies wouldn't happen, but where those bankruptcies would be about debts in the region of $14,000, not $1M. Something much easier for banks to handle.
That's the cynical part of me. Part of me hopes that the majority of Democrats who voted for the ACA merely thought it was the best they could do. But those two flaws need to be fixed. Get a Public Option in so there's at least one non-profit insurer, and abolish the high taxes on "cadillac" plans - the plans that, like pre-ACA plans, had token co-pays and reasonable deductibles.
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).
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.