[HN Gopher] Unconditional cash transfers reduce homelessness
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       Unconditional cash transfers reduce homelessness
        
       Author : sebg
       Score  : 24 points
       Date   : 2023-08-31 19:57 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.pnas.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.pnas.org)
        
       | LegitShady wrote:
       | We used to call unconditional cash transfer charity.
        
         | wcerfgba wrote:
         | Not sure I agree, my understanding of most charities is that
         | they aren't unconditional, and they don't transfer cash, but
         | other things instead.
         | 
         | That said, charity in the broader sense of "giving people
         | stuff" would apply, but there are affective (i.e.
         | psychological, emotional, and social) issues with this.
         | Instead, mutuality and mutual aid focus on building
         | relationships between people where they both provide
         | acknowledged value to each other. This solves issues such as
         | saviour/unworthiness complex, by binding people together in
         | relationships where they support each other, which are more
         | durable in the long term.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | biomcgary wrote:
       | At a small scale this might work, as in a study with cases=50 and
       | controls=65, in a largish metropolitan area. Can we see the
       | result of an experiment where 100% of the homeless (say, 3-5% of
       | the population in a given area) are given cash and have to
       | compete for currently available housing? It just becomes a
       | subsidy for landlords at that point.
       | 
       | Can you reduce homeless at scale with just cash and without
       | building more housing? If not, why not do the experiment of
       | building a ton of housing and tracing impact on homelessness?
        
         | paulryanrogers wrote:
         | Likely rent seekers will soak up their gains. We need to build
         | for density and transportation to match.
        
         | geysersam wrote:
         | I agree we need to build more cheap housing. But one could also
         | ask: why don't we already build more cheap housing? Probably
         | the answer is that nobody's able to pay for it. Making people
         | able to afford cheap housing creates a market for cheap housing
         | makes builders build cheap housing.
         | 
         | But sure, cut out the middle man and let the public sector
         | build good cheap housing.
        
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       (page generated 2023-08-31 23:02 UTC)