tenni
Dec 29, 2013, 12:52 PM
London, May 2009. (https://decorrespondent.nl/10/waarom-we-iedereen-gratis-geld-moeten-geven/384450-0b1c02bd) A small experiment involving thirteen homeless men takes off. They are street veterans. Some of them have been sleeping on the cold tiles of The Square Mile, the financial center of the world, for more than forty years. Their presence is far from cheap. Police, legal services, healthcare: the thirteen cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds. Every year.
That spring, a local charity takes a radical decision. The street veterans are to become the beneficiaries of an innovative social experiment. No more food stamps, food kitchen dinners or sporadic shelter stays for them. The men will get a drastic bailout, financed by taxpayers. They'll each receive 3,000 pounds, cash, with no strings attached. The men are free to decide what to spend it on; counseling services are completely optional. No requirements, no hard questions. The only question they have to answer is:
What do you think is good for you?
Gardening classes
‘I didn’t have enormous expectations,’ an aid worker recalls.
Yet the desires of the homeless men turned out to be quite modest. A phone, a passport, a dictionary - each participant had his own ideas about what would be best for him. None of the men wasted their money on alcohol, drugs or gambling. On the contrary, most of them were extremely frugal with the money they had received. On average, only 800 pounds had been spent at the end of the first year.
Simon’s life was turned upside down by the money. Having been addicted to heroine for twenty years, he finally got clean and began with gardening classes. ‘For the first time in my life everything just clicked, it feels like now I can do something’, he says. ‘I’m thinking of going back home. I’ve got two kids.’
A year after the experiment had started, eleven out of thirteen had a roof above their heads. They accepted accommodation, enrolled in education, learnt how to cook, got treatment for drug use, visited their families and made plans for the future. ‘I loved the cold weather,’ one of them remembers. ‘Now I hate it.’ After decades of authorities’ fruitless pushing, pulling, fines and persecution, eleven notorious vagrants finally moved off the streets. (http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/support-rough-sleepers-london)
Costs? 50,000 pounds a year, including the wages of the aid workers. In addition to giving eleven individuals another shot at life, the project had saved money by a factor of at least 7.
Even The Economist concluded:
‘The most efficient way to spend money on the homeless might be to give it to them.’
https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money-to-everyone/37329587526-eb81a9f1
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I don't know about this approach but it might be worth expanding the study.
Your thoughts?
That spring, a local charity takes a radical decision. The street veterans are to become the beneficiaries of an innovative social experiment. No more food stamps, food kitchen dinners or sporadic shelter stays for them. The men will get a drastic bailout, financed by taxpayers. They'll each receive 3,000 pounds, cash, with no strings attached. The men are free to decide what to spend it on; counseling services are completely optional. No requirements, no hard questions. The only question they have to answer is:
What do you think is good for you?
Gardening classes
‘I didn’t have enormous expectations,’ an aid worker recalls.
Yet the desires of the homeless men turned out to be quite modest. A phone, a passport, a dictionary - each participant had his own ideas about what would be best for him. None of the men wasted their money on alcohol, drugs or gambling. On the contrary, most of them were extremely frugal with the money they had received. On average, only 800 pounds had been spent at the end of the first year.
Simon’s life was turned upside down by the money. Having been addicted to heroine for twenty years, he finally got clean and began with gardening classes. ‘For the first time in my life everything just clicked, it feels like now I can do something’, he says. ‘I’m thinking of going back home. I’ve got two kids.’
A year after the experiment had started, eleven out of thirteen had a roof above their heads. They accepted accommodation, enrolled in education, learnt how to cook, got treatment for drug use, visited their families and made plans for the future. ‘I loved the cold weather,’ one of them remembers. ‘Now I hate it.’ After decades of authorities’ fruitless pushing, pulling, fines and persecution, eleven notorious vagrants finally moved off the streets. (http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/support-rough-sleepers-london)
Costs? 50,000 pounds a year, including the wages of the aid workers. In addition to giving eleven individuals another shot at life, the project had saved money by a factor of at least 7.
Even The Economist concluded:
‘The most efficient way to spend money on the homeless might be to give it to them.’
https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money-to-everyone/37329587526-eb81a9f1
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
I don't know about this approach but it might be worth expanding the study.
Your thoughts?