this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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I glanced over the actual study yesterday. Iirc, there was a control group of 65 who were studied on top of the other 50 who received the lump sum of cash. Both groups spent roughly similar amounts of stimulants such as alcohol and other drugs, despite the group receiving financial help obviously having access to more money. I think it makes more sense to think of the homeless' spending on stimulants as just another need they have developed due to different circumstances on their lives. Would their finances be easier to manage if they didn't have that spending? Sure, but very, very few people are going to be capable of overcoming an addiction on the short term when they structurally live under shit circumstances. Help them reach a minimum standard of living, then it'll be easier for them to successfully go through therapy.
TL;DR: Just give homeless people money, they tend to understand their own circumstances well enough to know how they should spend it.
I think itโs be obvious that if you give a homeless person ten bucks, thatโs not going to help them get out of homelessness, so of course itโs going to be spent on among their next day or so more tolerable in the form of mind altering substances.
Enough money to actually help and it starts getting spent on things that will improve their outlook on life.
Of course $7500 isn't nearly enough for pulling someone out of homelessness.
To be honest, I think it's far more efficient to give the homeless proper homes with locking doors and a respectable level of privacy as well as access to clean water and some sort of minimum level of food (like an infinite supply of rolled oats). It doesn't need to be a big home, even something little better than a capsule hotel room would be enough.
The homeless stay homeless because nobody can pull themselves together if they're constantly stressed trying to figure out how to even reach the next day. It's even worse when you don't have access to a shower to clean yourself up to be presentable enough to get through an interview at even the most unwanted jobs.
It's the single biggest reason why mental illness is so rampant amongst the homeless and few ever repair their lives.
I absolutely agree. But I do think it's interesting how there's almost never any discussion of drug use and alcoholism among housed people, as though that's not a social problem in itself. And imagine how much more severe the consequences are of people going to work fucked up, driving their cars, selling drugs in their dorms and getting kicked out of college, raising a family while trashed on xanax, and so on.
But when this happens, it's an even more individualized matter than it is with homeless people. When we look at homeless folks, we individualize the blame and socialize the consequences (it's the homeless person's fault they're homeless, but that's fucking up our city etc). Somehow, we never consider the social repercussions of housed people with addictions, especially if they have an addiction to alcohol. Alcoholism can get pretty far in an "average" person's life before anyone really steps in and sees it as a serious problem. Same with prescribed drugs, because they have some psychiatrists signature on them. Millions of people drink when they get home from work. But if we see a homebum with a 40, we first make a snap diagnosis, then widen our judgement to everyone whose ever been evicted or had to sleep in their car.
All I'm saying is that half the problem is ingrained social stigma, when they're really not much different from the rest of us.
Yep. That's pretty much the result of otherization. "Well, this group significantly different from ourselves and their issues must be thought of as a social problem", "but that has pretty much nothing to do with my neighbour though, he's just got a little drinking problem".
As a housed person, I've also spend roughly the same amount on alcohol and other drugs pretty consistently since the age of 25, regardless of changes in my income level.
Same for almost everyone else I know, whether above or below dependency levels.
Yes, the article mentions the control group, too. What they don't mention (and I'm curious about) is whether the savings figure quoted was gross or net? I'll quote another comment in this post since I'm not sure how to properly link it.
"Is that gross or net savings? That is, is the $7500 included and there was a net savings, or was there a net cost of $6723?"
Any idea, from skimming the actual study?
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2222103120