From Canada’s New Leaf Project:
In partnership with the University of British Columbia, Foundations for Social Change launched the world’s first direct cash transfer program to empower people to move beyond homelessness in Canada.
Specifically, our New Leaf project (NLP) distributed a one-time cash transfer of $7,500 to people experiencing recent homelessness in the Vancouver area.
While many would balk at the thought of disbursing large sums of cash to people living in homelessness, our approach was based upon scientific evidence and our bold action has paid off. By preventing people from becoming entrenched as homeless, NLP helps individuals to maintain dignity and regain hope. At the same time, community resources can be spent in other urgent areas.
Cash transfers provide choice, control and purchasing power at a critical time in people’s lives. This is not merely a gesture of help, it is a signal that society believes in them.
CNN summarizes:
Researchers gave 50 recently homeless people a lump sum of 7,500 Canadian dollars (nearly $5,700). They followed the cash recipients’ life over 12-18 months and compared their outcomes to that of a control group who didn’t receive the payment.
The preliminary findings, which will be peer-reviewed next year, show that those who received cash were able to find stable housing faster, on average. By comparison, those who didn’t receive cash lagged about 12 months behind in securing more permanent housing.
People who received cash were able to access the food they needed to live faster. Nearly 70% did after one month, and maintained greater food security throughout the year.
The recipients spent more on food, clothing and rent, while there was a 39% decrease in spending on goods like alcohol, cigarettes or drugs.
Keeping in mind that 50 subjects barely makes this study statistically significant, the subjects were carefully selected, and the study is not peer-reviewed, it does make a lot of sense once we discard the mindset that poverty and homelessness are symptoms of, well, sin and bad judgment. As we become more and more overpopulated, the societal surges become more and more a symptom of the pathologies of a society struggling with inequities, failures of morality in the corporate world, and a failure to consider the communal good in favor of the Me-Me-Me world that seems to pervade the political spectrum, if unevenly. The individual failures are less symptomatic of bad choices and more of hopeless situations, or of choices made in the face of the maelstrom that could not have easily been improved upon.
This also inclines me more favorably towards experimenting with Universal Basic Income (UBI), as this study can be seen as a temporary UBI. I don’t see UBI as a panacea for hopelessness and homelessness (H&H), yet it’s difficult to deny that a lack of income can contribute to institutional H&H. Can UBI alleviate that and improve societal mental health? The corporate world might well back UBI, once it realizes that better mental health leads to improved productivity, although it also leads to more worker mobility – a problem for businesses who are, to summarize some thoughts, poorly run.
I hope we hear more about this study in the future.
