Yup. Programmes that have experimented with giving homeless people hundreds in no-rules cash find that within a couple of months most of them have secured accommodation and reconnected with family and friends. After a while the majority are in paid employment.
Who would have guessed that the most of the problems of extreme poverty could be solved with money?!
But to take it a bit further, high capacity public infrastructure can go a long way towards improving the lives of low income working people.
Trains, buses, and subways can eliminate the need to own and maintain a car. Public housing can get people off the street, where they won't be at risk of harm from interpersonal violence or exposure to severe weather. Public education and public health care have more benefits than I could list.
At an individual level, "Just give people money" is an immediate and useful generic panacea. But at a more macro level, geographic access to grocery stores and clinics and colleges and bus stops and permanent homes and factories matter just as much.
When I took out a loan from my bank I swear to God for the first 6 months they were absolutely terrified of my spending habits and I got emails daily about how to spend and and how my spending habits were reckless. I've made every payment I don't understand what f****** high horse they were coming from.
I'm gonna be that guy, since there are a lot of comments saying that "research suggests".
Source?
I do fully agree with it. The drug trade is impossible to stop, but decriminalisation and funding of healthcare will help many that are homeless. From tackling these aspects, helping those that want to free roam to do so safely, basically leaves you with those that just need some money to get back on their feet.
But, even if these things seem obvious, they need a source if you're going to speak from a position of fact.
Ok but have we tried telling them about Jesus instead of giving them money? They're poor because they're bad. If you give them money then they'll use it to be bad again, which will keep them poor. /s
Fun story. My FIL couldn't afford to travel to our wedding. I loaned him 3k for travel and a tux and hotel fare for his family. That Christmas we got one of those books from Ollies titled "500 ways to save money" from him. I lost the fight to send it back with torn out pages and a note that would say "1-500. Don't lend money to family".
Edit 3: one last edit that I'm putting at the top because I'm not sure if people are only reading part of what I've written, jumping to conclusions and then putting words into my mouth; or if I've just been very bad at conveying what I'm trying to say.
Firstly: I'm arguing from an American perspective, something I failed to specify.
Secondly: money is great, however, many people need more than money. By all means, give them money, but make sure they have other resources in case they need it. If nothing else, there are a lot of people in homelessness or poverty with serious mental health needs. Money isn't going to help if they can't afford healthcare.
Thirdly: I also failed to give examples of what I meant by, do something else too. I meant, cap rent, build public housing, ensure that people have access to food even when CEOs are renting out pineapples, etc.
Finally: the US runs on greed. Prices in the US are outstripping wages dramatically because CEOs realized they could charge more. I think the reason why giving money works in studies is because CEOs don't know who's getting the handouts; if they did, they'd absolutely try to fleece them for the assistance money. That's why doing it universally, so that CEOs know that a lot of people are getting additional money, without any other form of assistance, will just lead to people being priced out of life again.
Not sure how much I'll contribute or respond after this. I'm feeling kinda discouraged due to how many people are putting words in my mouth (it may be a misunderstanding, but it's still demoralizing).
Oh my god, I'm using fish as a metaphor for money, and teaching someone to fish as a metaphor for ensuring their ability to provide for themselves. That's what the metaphor is about. Ensuring people's ability to provide for themselves. Is that really what y'all are confused about? If you see me referring to "fish" then I'm talking about money, not food.
I'm not convinced that just cash will solve homelessness or poverty. It may help, but it seems like a "give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime" kinda situation. Give people the fish so they can eat, but if you want them to actually be independent, then you gotta make sure they have the tools they need to do so.
And you know what, maybe they just are that way, maybe they're just cursed to always be a dependent on someone. However, if that's the case then they're going to need way more help than just fish. In the meantime though, maybe treat them like human beings that are down on their luck but otherwise capable of supporting themselves. Yeah, make sure they have food, a roof over their head, water, toilets and so on, but don't stop there. That's why I'm saying this, there may be people who see your post and think that just throwing money at the problem will make it go away. It'll help, but it's not gonna fix it 100%.
Edit: I'm not sure why it's controversial to say that people need more help than just money. Personally? If I was homeless or in poverty, I'd want more than just money. Like, I'm not saying to not give people who are homeless or in poverty money, but what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't stop there.
Edit 2: I don't understand why people are so confused here. I'm not saying it won't work for some people, but there are people that it won't work for. To repeat something I said further along, in my experience, there are people who take these things literally. In my experience, there are people who would look at this meme, say, "sounds good, let's do that" and then get mad when it doesn't work for everyone.
I'm not saying that money won't help a lot of people; it would. It's just that there are people who will take this literally and believe it's the only thing you have to do.
Money is religion now. It's scary to be rational about it. There's a dogma and that's that. Any other way and we freak out.
Ok reusing clothes is not a bad thing. Even in a perfect world with no poverty, it's important to reuse.
Works the same with the climate crisis, amazing!
Your solution is literally just "give money"? That only works in some instances, where a person is struggling because of bad luck or whatever, but has a desire to improve their situation. But if they are a substance abuser or are mentally ill, money isn't going to help like housing would, since they either don't know what to do with it, or they prioritize drugs over shelter.
Cereal for dinner sounds pretty reasonable, what do you think?
Financial education, it's practically intentional that we don't learn proper finance management and if you're family didn't manage money well (poor or rich) you'll struggle to use any money you get effectively when your out on your own
