A study by USC and a San Francisco-based nonprofit has found that a $750 monthly stipend improves the lives of homeless people.

If 100 homeless people were given $750 per month for a year, no questions asked, what would they spend it on?

That question was at the core of a controlled study conducted by a San Francisco-based nonprofit and the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

The results were so promising that the researchers decided to publish results after only six months. The answer: food, 36.6%; housing, 19.5%; transportation, 12.7%; clothing, 11.5%; and healthcare, 6.2%, leaving only 13.6% uncategorized.

Those who got the stipend were less likely to be unsheltered after six months and able to meet more of their basic needs than a control group that got no money, and half as likely as the control group to have an episode of being unsheltered.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20231221131158/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-19/750-a-month-no-questions-asked-improved-the-lives-of-homeless-people

  • EngiNerd@lemmy.world
    17·
    11 months ago

    That’s 0.7% of the 2023 US defence budget ($857.9B). I’d much rather have my taxes going to help people in need.

    • Pratai
      111·
      11 months ago

      Right, but we live in the real world where things like that are irrelevant because no one is going to challenge it. So I task you to come up with a solution where we can solve this without having to rely on people to do the right thing.

      I’ll save you some time.

      There isn’t one. Taxpayers are a renewable source of income. Were the Soylent green. As long as they can make us pay for it/ there’s no need to fix anything.

      And $5.8BN is a lot to come out of our taxes.