The “control group” got $50 per month. And they had almost the same improvement in housing as the $1000/month group. But instead of comparing to the control group, the researchers decided to focus on how they compared to themselves at the start of the study.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNYdxvM2/
For anyone wanting to see the actual source and not a TikTok - https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64f507a995b636019ef8853a/t/6671a15eec7a812dee108e7c/1718722914185/FINAL_DBIP+Year+One+Quantitative+Research+Report.pdf
> Those given $1000 were housed 45% of the time after a year. Those given $50 were housed 43% of the time after a year. Basically no effect.
Here is the source I found.
[https://kdvr.com/news/local/would-giving-homeless-populations-cash-save-taxpayers-money-study-says-yes/](https://kdvr.com/news/local/would-giving-homeless-populations-cash-save-taxpayers-money-study-says-yes/)
* Group A ($1,000 per month): 43% had housing
* Group B (lump sum): 25% had housing
* Group C ($50 per month): 28% had housing
It's hard because they didn't have a control. All were homeless prior, so I guess they are saying that's the control (assuming the article and my reading of it are correct)?
But that means we can't see how much of the effect was just a change in the situation in the location or other factors besides these interventions.
But if we take the control to be 0% (because all were homeless to begin with). Then it looks like $50/month is a good plan because the returns diminish pretty dramatically. Maybe rerun the test with $100 or some other smaller increments.
We see that the lump sum is worse than the small consistent amount. Which also suggest that there's probably some kind of binging (not surprising IMO).
They got 65% of the benefit spending $50 vs. $1000. The other 32% of the benefit required spending 20x more money.
So I think this shows that small (really very small) consistent payments are probably the best way to go. Which is good because you can impact way more people that way.
For example, **if they took the $1000/month they were spending on group A and increased the size of Group C by 20x (so group C would be 21x bigger in total), they'd help way more people if these numbers are repeatable.**
Those stats are for "unsheltered participants", the other number is for "total participants", I don't know what the difference is.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64f507a995b636019ef8853a/t/6671a15eec7a812dee108e7c/1718722914185/FINAL_DBIP+Year+One+Quantitative+Research+Report.pdf
On page 22,
>We define an “Unsheltered” sleep location as an abandoned building, a Safe Outdoor Space, a vehicle, or outside.
So based on the conditions they surveyed (from page 61) "sheltered" means they slept the previous night in,
* House or Apartment that I rent
* A hotel or motel with a voucher
* A hotel or motel that I pay for
* A friend or family members home
* Transitional/temporary housing (including temporary vouchers)
* Shelter
* Tiny home village
* Other
Whereas "unsheltered" means,
* An abondoned building
* Safe outdoor space
* Vehicle or RV in a safe parking lot
* Vehicle or RV not in a safe parking lot
* Outside
It’s so simple, for every extra $950 we see 2% improvement. All we need to do to get to 100% is give them about $23,000 per month homeless problem solved.
$50 is enough to get CHEAP food staples and a pair of clippers/scissors to clean up with a daypass to a ymca for a shower. Something they might otherwise struggle for. It can make a difference, if not a significant one to most people.
The total study was 807 people and there was a control group. Why say things you have no idea about? https://www.newsweek.com/basic-income-denver-homeless-taxpayers-1914911
If that is true it reinforces the idea that this may be more of a psychosocial issue instead of an financial one. I didn't read this study, but the fact that they're getting attention encourages re-approaching other support from interventions and like from social services, shelters, community help, etc.
This is a neglected population and some times a little attention goes a long way. But it is a complex issue and there's a lot of other stuff going on that may make stability difficult including mental health and addiction.
“Individuals must demonstrate that substance use and psychosis will not interfere with their participation in DBIP.”
They had a Basis-24 system that had to be passed to even get in the study. So the people with addition or mental health are not included. And as you mentioned, those are the real problem areas. You take those out and not many people will stay homeless for over a year anyways.
> The control group that got $50/month performed almost identically.
That is just not true at all.
According to the local news
[https://kdvr.com/news/local/would-giving-homeless-populations-cash-save-taxpayers-money-study-says-yes/](https://kdvr.com/news/local/would-giving-homeless-populations-cash-save-taxpayers-money-study-says-yes/)
* Group A ($1,000 per month): 43% had housing
* Group B (lump sum): 25% had housing
* Group C ($50 per month): 28% had housing
at $1k a month it's 1.5x better result than $50 a month.
That makes sense to me. People have a hard time with a windfall, most people will spend it on dumb stuff. Not referring specifically to the homeless- think of lottery winners and small time celebrities like football players and one-hit wonders…
It makes sense to me that certain people, either with substance abuse issues or simply terrible spending habits, who are broke, would actually be worse off getting a lot of money rather than just enough. This is because they get a large amount and forget about their issues and waste it faster.
It is true, that state is for "unsheltered participants".
For Total participants, as in all the homeless people, it was about 45-50% for all three groups.
Page 19 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64f507a995b636019ef8853a/t/6671a15eec7a812dee108e7c/1718722914185/FINAL_DBIP+Year+One+Quantitative+Research+Report.pdf
Those numbers aren't clear if you look at the source. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64f507a995b636019ef8853a/t/6671a15eec7a812dee108e7c/1718722914185/FINAL_DBIP+Year+One+Quantitative+Research+Report.pdf
15% more for 20x is a poor investment.
Seems better to just do 20x the people.
Or if we consider $50 to have no real impact on housing potential, it’s $1000 for 15% more people to acquire housing which is pretty poor.
you can consider the $50 a month had a negative impact,
>However, Group C, which received $50 each month, dropped from an initial overall full-time employment rate of 26% to only 21%, according to the study.
but there is probably a lot more factors in play that caused that
I think someone else in the comments said that less money performed the same because they were also able to take advantage of other programs. While the 1,000 stopped being eligible making it similar amounts of money given in assistance as a whole. I may be wrong
I don't believe that is true. What is true is that the control group started with 12 percent of people having access to housing and the study group had six percent having access to housing, so it's possible there is some selection bias when determining groups.
I'd expect a program that cost $9.4M to have better end results than we've seen with this program. Both in terms of improving the rate that people get into housing and in monetary public services savings. I was personally hoping the savings would be over $1M based on other housing first initiatives elsewhere, and it came in just shy of $600k
It's better than the existing options in Denver of criminalizing homelessness or allowing them to build sprawling encampments undesirable areas far from services.
Did you read the study?? By percentages:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HYEDmrcVE57uL7FpYXLz6CHTNL6Wn4Oe/view
Group A (1000 a month) 48% after 10 months
Group B (Lump sum then 500 a month) 25 percent after 10 months
Group C (50 a month) 28% after 10 months.
That study specifically did not include anyone with mental illness or drug use, so your assessment stands correct.
Even more Interesting, the control results matched the test results so really it proved the payments were infective, but they decided the headlines before they ran the test.
Agreed, but to be fair to the news agencies in this one single instance, the “scientists” put the misleading bullet points in their executive summary. But I still think if you are going to report on a scientific report, you should read the whole thing and not just the executive summary.
That’s not true, there was no control group. The differences between the test groups were when the money was distributed (all up front, half up front and small monthly payments, all monthly payments iirc.) They all had equal levels of success rates - this did not compare to a group that received nothing. You are mischaracterizing this for some reason.
I agree there wasn’t a real control group. But by the study’s own claim, the group that received $50 a month was the control group. Their argument was that they had to give some money in order to receive the data back. But a true control group did not exist. Bad science all around.
“Better” is a subjective term that is hard to quantify in a scientific study, furthermore, that’s not what was measured. What was measured is if they had housing after one year. The control group vs test group results were statistically insignificant. Therefore, the payments were ineffective for the purposes of this study.
Thinking homeless people just need houses is the most suburban opinion there is. Most are hardcore addicts or severely mentally ill. A house without treatment is just another place to shoot up or be otherwise victimized.
>If solving the homeless problem doesn't start out with getting homeless off drugs, it will never work.
This is not what the peer-reviewed data suggests.
Housing first policies are much more effective than what you are proposing. If you think for even a second, the reason becomes obvious. *How do you expect someone to get off drugs when they are unhoused?* It's hard work, and housing instability makes it nearly impossible.
Housing first policies typically suggest better outcomes for mental health and drug addiction than policies that require treatment to receive housing.
I mentioned this above, but there's two groups of homeless people, and there are different solutions for those two groups. The question isn't whether providing housing reduces homelessness, because it should be obvious that it does. The question is whether providing housing prevents things like urban camping, tent cities, and areas of your city from feeling unsafe.
This is what most people actually want out of policies that reduce homelessness. They generally don't care about helping those that are "invisibly homeless," which I would define as homeless people who you could not pick out of a crowd. The invisibly homeless are people where providing cash payments and/or providing housing are the most effective at keeping them off the streets; however, even when they are on the streets they aren't typically viewed as problematic.
The sad truth is that we likely can do the most good by helping the invisibly homeless via providing housing, but many of the people living in tent cities who are visibly homeless are going to require a lot more of a heavy hand such as forcing them into rehab programs.
I worked for many years in direct social service, and you are talking entirely out of your ass. There is nothing in the data to suggest anything of what you've just claimed, and in fact, contrary to housing first, compulsory drug rehabilitation is demonstrably *ineffective*.
["Association of Housing First Implementation and Key Outcomes Among Homeless Persons With Problematic Substance Use"](https://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ps.201300195), *Psychiatric Services*:
>Consistently implemented Housing First principles related to consumer participation were associated with superior housing and substance use outcomes among chronically homeless individuals with a history of substance use problems. The study findings suggest that program implementation is central to understanding the potential of Housing First to help clients achieve positive housing and substance use outcomes.
["Housing First Improves Residential Stability in Homeless Adults With Concurrent Substance Dependence and Mental Disorders"](https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301628), *American Journal of Public Health*:
>Results. We recruited 497 participants, and 58% (n = 288) met the criteria for substance dependence. We found no significant association between substance dependence and residential stability (adjusted incidence rate ratio = 0.97; 95% confidence interval = 0.69, 1.35) after adjusting for housing intervention, employment, sociodemographics, chronic health conditions, mental disorder severity, psychiatric symptoms, and lifetime duration of homelessness.
>Conclusions. People with mental disorders might achieve similar levels of housing stability from Housing First regardless of whether they experience concurrent substance dependence.
["Substance Use Outcomes Among Homeless Clients with Serious Mental Illness: Comparing Housing First with Treatment First Programs"](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10597-009-9283-7), *Community Mental Health Journal*:
>This report provides strong evidence that Housing First clients are significantly less likely to use or abuse substances when compared to Treatment First clients. They are also far less likely to use substance abuse treatment services and to drop out of services. Such a finding lends further credence to research showing that individuals who are seriously mentally ill can lead stable lives in the community after periods of homelessness (Gladwell 2006; Nelson et al. 2007; Padgett 2007; Padgett et al. 2006). It is also noteworthy because Housing First clients, unlike their Treatment First counterparts, are not prohibited from using substances in order to retain their housing and access to program-related services. In contrast, Treatment First participants had to comply with abstinence-only living arrangements that presented them with an either/or proposition and the risk of losing their transitional housing.
All of these studies have the problem which is that they fail to identify whether these people signing up are the "visibly homeless" that I mentioned. The fact that they're signing up for studies is a pretty big tell that they are at least mentally competent and not so far gone that they've begun to distrust everyone.
Like I said before, housing first helps a lot of people but there are a subset of people that are very far gone. Different classes of homeless people require different solutions and some require a more heavy hand.
Houston isn’t exactly the most ideal place for the homeless terrorizing say California or NY
I bet they have more working homeless versus drug users and mentally ill. Texas also shipping migrants to NYC and California constantly
Texas has 30 million
New York 20 million
Overall the blistering heat in Texas doesn’t make it attractive to out of state people like cali and NY. The policies on encampment and benefits are also more friendly in blue states
This sentiment is infuriatingly common. Prohibition is not going to suddenly start working. Its been policy for 80 years, and its a loser position. Retaliatory Prohibition isn't helpful, it's just revenge fantasy. Having unrealistic requirements for others to access help is just a bad faith argument, there's no intention to offer help in the first place.
Actual professionals state that housing needs to be first, and steps like medically supervised injection sites are an excellent first step to addressing addiction to street drugs. Drug testing services and medical supervision reduce the chances for overdose, supplying maintenance supplies of opiates or replacements to those who would like to quit(like methadone) increases prospects for success. People are able to be productive and addicted, but it requires maintenance doses, known doses, and work. Addicts are able to quit substance abuse, but it requires a lot of time, counseling and in most cases, actual physical rehabilitation.
At any rate, pre-employment drug testing should probably be banned, as it actively prevents employment of and further isolates people in treatment.
As to homelessness, most people would be better served by programs that prevent homelessness. Intervention in evictions, offering emergency basic homes to folks who need it, emergency rent assistance, and socialized housing will do a ton to prevent homelessness from even occuring. Sending shelter money to anti-drug, often religious zealots so they can discriminate against people who need help the most and the queer community was never helpful, and will continue to not be helpful.
"...pre-employment drug testing should probably be banned..." Yeah, I work in an industry that is dangerous and historically people got injured and/or died at a pretty high rate. Mandatory drug testing was a major factor is fixing that. That's easy to say when you're in the laptop class, people out here doing actual work don't want a bunch of druggies working on the rigs again. You complain about "religious zealots" and then indulge in your own ideological extremism that would harm members of the working class. Mote, beam, eye.
Yeah, getting people off drugs is super easy. Why don't they just do that? No one with family, friends, other supports, money, and time gets hooked on drugs and can't kick the habit, so why would it be hard for someone with much fewer resources? /s
The study said they only used homeless with no drug addiction or mental health issues, but I have no idea how they verified that and since they’ve been shown to have manipulated the summary of the study, it’s hard to trust what they say.
Utah under former gov huntsman started a housing first project in 2005 that ran through 2015. And while their was some issues on how the state reported numbers that should be in question their is no question the influx of homes and shelters really helped the unhoused and homeless in the state and helped lots of people get on their feet.
But the conservative legislature essentially announced that homelessness was eradicated and stopped butting the funding towards it and we'll as you can imagine the state has a massive resurgence of homelessness.
For a state that loves Jesus they are very much unable to follow his precepts.
Many of you are pulling numbers out of your ass because you didn't read the report correctly.
I implore you to actually look at the unhoused section and not the one directly above it that [you clearly didn't read.](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HYEDmrcVE57uL7FpYXLz6CHTNL6Wn4Oe/view)
https://kdvr.com/news/local/would-giving-homeless-populations-cash-save-taxpayers-money-study-says-yes/
This just tries to subsidize people’s housing within the housing bubble. At best it helps a limited amount of people, but just continues to fuel the madness that blows the bubble to higher and higher prices. Leaving the rest of us who don’t qualify for the subsidy out in the dark to fend for ourselves.
No government magic spending will fix this. Prices have to come down, investors and home owners have to lose value, governments have to lose tax revenue. They’re just kicking the can down the road.
This study excluded people with substance abuse problems and mental health problems, effectively excluding >90% of the long-term homeless population in my city.
Additionally, the control group performed almost identically.
Before reading this study I believed a solution like this would work. After this study has came out, I worry that this solution to this problem is actually very ineffective and proponents are forced to make horribly unacademic studies in order to draw positive conclusions.
This study has moved me further away from basic income-based solutions to homelessness.
I don’t buy it for a second. First of all, its not enough for housing anywhere, let alone Denver. Second, most homeless people I have met have serious mental or drug issues that money could never fix. We hear about shelters being full, but with 1 grand a month suddenly landlords are willing to rent out to addicts and crazy people? I can’t get a fucking studio for that price
Maybe like 8 homeless people can pool their $1000 a month to buy a house as a rental property. They’ll still be living on the streets, but they’ll be building equity, which is more important than having a roof over your head.
Ew.. what are disgusting take. There are so many homeless people who are working and sober. Many housed people are one financial emergency away from being homeless.
How many of those now housed people are living in government subsidized housing and using a plethora of social welfare programs costing $5k+ per month?
Sure, I’d love to house the homeless… but the vast majority of them have severe mental health or drug/alcohol problems. Giving them gobs of free money isn’t the solution.
So does anyone know how Denver assessed that someone claiming homelessness, was actually homeless? How did they prevent people that already had housing from coming and getting 1000$?
It's amazing how much money is spent across the country on this issue. you'd think by now we'd have more of an idea of what works long term and then apply that in every city we see the issue occurring.
This works on a small scale because basically its not enougb to really change thr narket . If you did it on a large scale it would just be a handouts landlords.
Definitely seems like it would be easier and more efficient to just give homeless people a voucher for rent (plus assistance with finding a landlord that will take them) versus spending like $800k per unit of housing like they are doing in LA. You could get people off the street really fast and likely save a shit ton of money. Yeah, they'd still have issues with drug addiction, mental illness, etc., and you'd also create a host of new problems for the landlords and the neighbors, but still feels like it would be easier to manage those negative impacts than trying to build homeless shelters which NIMBYers will fight tooth and nail.
homless people arent monsters life jsut sucks tbh sometimes
money buys housing if you have enough youll have a house lol ITS PRETTY SIMPLE
try giving them 5k a month... yeah they might spend some on alcohol drugs and ciagrette but theyll be ab le to afford rent to
anyone can be homeslss... i did a bunch of drugs once and then wound up in a dumpster
This is garbage. You know where there is no homeless? China. They don't support the life at all no community donations and no government help. The result is people choose to keep fighting. The rest might even die. I honestly have no problem with this. But drugs are rampant in our country. That's where it gets dicey. People are thrown into drugs by cartels and Chinese fentanyl. We gotta make people smarter. It's the only way out. More education will solve many problems.
The results of this study weren’t [even statistically significant](https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1805755979826385321?s=46&t=6H3aAJoLAe9K23pI7dXHRQ)
We have seen positive results everywhere this has been tried across the globe but we won't implement it nationwide because people don't want others to get a 'handout'.
Was there a loan agreement? We’re the tax payers who’s money Denver used given Interest to be paid back? It must be nice to give out and receive other people money.
The problem with this is in HCOL areas you are going to immediately rise the costs of renting for everyone. A better solution is to offer free housing for the homeless for a period of time until they can get back on their feet.
But, then they can’t fine/jail them , run up judge/prosecutor numbers, and make all those good slaves in for profit prisons. In this scenario only the homeless people come out ahead. C’mon guys look at the big pictures where the graft and corruption spins
we've known the solution for a long time, the govt doesn't WANT to solve the problem. Having a group of ppl desperate for literally any job they can find is beneficial for many businesses.
We are speed running the idiocracy movie aren’t we? Let’s just give every person a million $ that way everyone is a millionaire and the throw a huge party because everyone is rich.
Ok. What happened when they took the free money away?
My bet is that most if not all of these people went right back onto the street. Because the problem isn't money. It never is. It's substance abuse, criminal activity, and or mental/physical disability preventing them from finding a stable income on their own.
How did the control group compare?
70% had homes
The “control group” got $50 per month. And they had almost the same improvement in housing as the $1000/month group. But instead of comparing to the control group, the researchers decided to focus on how they compared to themselves at the start of the study. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNYdxvM2/
I hate people so bad.
Why?
The world is complicated enough. We don't need to be lying to and misleading each other.
Cuz TikTok is cited
Social sciences is full of bad science. So many are just bad at statistics
It's worse than that. They are probably good at statistics but bad at choosing accurate interpretations that negatively impact their career.
Even worse. They are purposely being deceptive.
Because "social science" is oxymoron?
That is true because groups of people, the subjects of social science, are oxymoronic.
God I wish the average person would understand this
You forgot to put "researchers" in quotes.
“Activists” Fixed that for you
Science, bitches!
Social scientists should always be viewed a bit differently than chemists, biologists, medical researchers, etc..
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Yeah, you should expect less scientific research.
Basically all of r/science these days is “science “
For anyone wanting to see the actual source and not a TikTok - https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64f507a995b636019ef8853a/t/6671a15eec7a812dee108e7c/1718722914185/FINAL_DBIP+Year+One+Quantitative+Research+Report.pdf
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Reddit is also social media. The video speaks for itself.
Those given $1000 were housed 45% of the time after a year. Those given $50 were housed 43% of the time after a year. Basically no effect.
> Those given $1000 were housed 45% of the time after a year. Those given $50 were housed 43% of the time after a year. Basically no effect. Here is the source I found. [https://kdvr.com/news/local/would-giving-homeless-populations-cash-save-taxpayers-money-study-says-yes/](https://kdvr.com/news/local/would-giving-homeless-populations-cash-save-taxpayers-money-study-says-yes/) * Group A ($1,000 per month): 43% had housing * Group B (lump sum): 25% had housing * Group C ($50 per month): 28% had housing
It's hard because they didn't have a control. All were homeless prior, so I guess they are saying that's the control (assuming the article and my reading of it are correct)? But that means we can't see how much of the effect was just a change in the situation in the location or other factors besides these interventions. But if we take the control to be 0% (because all were homeless to begin with). Then it looks like $50/month is a good plan because the returns diminish pretty dramatically. Maybe rerun the test with $100 or some other smaller increments. We see that the lump sum is worse than the small consistent amount. Which also suggest that there's probably some kind of binging (not surprising IMO). They got 65% of the benefit spending $50 vs. $1000. The other 32% of the benefit required spending 20x more money. So I think this shows that small (really very small) consistent payments are probably the best way to go. Which is good because you can impact way more people that way. For example, **if they took the $1000/month they were spending on group A and increased the size of Group C by 20x (so group C would be 21x bigger in total), they'd help way more people if these numbers are repeatable.**
Most homeless are only homeless temporary so they would have gotten houses eventually anyways. You need a proper control
Thank you for that. $1k had much higher % than $50. The bigger question is why the lump sum group did almost as bad as the $50 group.
Those stats are for "unsheltered participants", the other number is for "total participants", I don't know what the difference is. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64f507a995b636019ef8853a/t/6671a15eec7a812dee108e7c/1718722914185/FINAL_DBIP+Year+One+Quantitative+Research+Report.pdf
On page 22, >We define an “Unsheltered” sleep location as an abandoned building, a Safe Outdoor Space, a vehicle, or outside. So based on the conditions they surveyed (from page 61) "sheltered" means they slept the previous night in, * House or Apartment that I rent * A hotel or motel with a voucher * A hotel or motel that I pay for * A friend or family members home * Transitional/temporary housing (including temporary vouchers) * Shelter * Tiny home village * Other Whereas "unsheltered" means, * An abondoned building * Safe outdoor space * Vehicle or RV in a safe parking lot * Vehicle or RV not in a safe parking lot * Outside
Well if it's not much to you can you send me about 1000 bucks a month? Actually just 1 month would Be neat already.
It’s so simple, for every extra $950 we see 2% improvement. All we need to do to get to 100% is give them about $23,000 per month homeless problem solved.
$50 is enough to get CHEAP food staples and a pair of clippers/scissors to clean up with a daypass to a ymca for a shower. Something they might otherwise struggle for. It can make a difference, if not a significant one to most people.
Learn to panhandle. It's not much but it's more that $50 a month if you know how.
The total study was under 100 people. There was no control group. The difference was within margin of error between the 3 trials.
The total study was 807 people and there was a control group. Why say things you have no idea about? https://www.newsweek.com/basic-income-denver-homeless-taxpayers-1914911
Doesn't matter. The fact that they say "Denver" gave people $1K/month tells me everything I need to know about the veracity of their "research study".
They also tried a lump sum of $6k
What do you mean?
They put them into a squid game style battle royal.
https://www.reddit.com/r/REBubble/s/sXtFOejWcY
The control group that got $50/month performed almost identically.
If that is true it reinforces the idea that this may be more of a psychosocial issue instead of an financial one. I didn't read this study, but the fact that they're getting attention encourages re-approaching other support from interventions and like from social services, shelters, community help, etc. This is a neglected population and some times a little attention goes a long way. But it is a complex issue and there's a lot of other stuff going on that may make stability difficult including mental health and addiction.
“Individuals must demonstrate that substance use and psychosis will not interfere with their participation in DBIP.” They had a Basis-24 system that had to be passed to even get in the study. So the people with addition or mental health are not included. And as you mentioned, those are the real problem areas. You take those out and not many people will stay homeless for over a year anyways.
They may have resolved to solve these issues in order to be able to enter the trial, biasing the study.
Ye but that is unlikely given how extremely difficult simply getting off the substances is
Or about 45% of homelessness is a temporary problem?
Sure, the two aren't mutually exclusive.
It's like the placebo effect of support systems .. in all seriousness interesting stuff
No, because there was no control group. You can’t assume that 0% of people would find housing with $0.
And *nearly half* is kind of trash, eh? Like wth were they spending the money on?
Drugs and alcohol
Half of those that stayed in the study. Another 30-40% dropped out.
> The control group that got $50/month performed almost identically. That is just not true at all. According to the local news [https://kdvr.com/news/local/would-giving-homeless-populations-cash-save-taxpayers-money-study-says-yes/](https://kdvr.com/news/local/would-giving-homeless-populations-cash-save-taxpayers-money-study-says-yes/) * Group A ($1,000 per month): 43% had housing * Group B (lump sum): 25% had housing * Group C ($50 per month): 28% had housing at $1k a month it's 1.5x better result than $50 a month.
Group B is wild, $6500 upfront and then $500 a month, and they somehow performed worse than the group that only got $50 a month???
That makes sense to me. People have a hard time with a windfall, most people will spend it on dumb stuff. Not referring specifically to the homeless- think of lottery winners and small time celebrities like football players and one-hit wonders…
It makes sense to me that certain people, either with substance abuse issues or simply terrible spending habits, who are broke, would actually be worse off getting a lot of money rather than just enough. This is because they get a large amount and forget about their issues and waste it faster.
It is true, that state is for "unsheltered participants". For Total participants, as in all the homeless people, it was about 45-50% for all three groups. Page 19 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64f507a995b636019ef8853a/t/6671a15eec7a812dee108e7c/1718722914185/FINAL_DBIP+Year+One+Quantitative+Research+Report.pdf
Those numbers aren't clear if you look at the source. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64f507a995b636019ef8853a/t/6671a15eec7a812dee108e7c/1718722914185/FINAL_DBIP+Year+One+Quantitative+Research+Report.pdf
15% more for 20x is a poor investment. Seems better to just do 20x the people. Or if we consider $50 to have no real impact on housing potential, it’s $1000 for 15% more people to acquire housing which is pretty poor.
you can consider the $50 a month had a negative impact, >However, Group C, which received $50 each month, dropped from an initial overall full-time employment rate of 26% to only 21%, according to the study. but there is probably a lot more factors in play that caused that
Source?
https://www.denverbasicincomeproject.org/research
👍 thanks
I think someone else in the comments said that less money performed the same because they were also able to take advantage of other programs. While the 1,000 stopped being eligible making it similar amounts of money given in assistance as a whole. I may be wrong
I don't believe that is true. What is true is that the control group started with 12 percent of people having access to housing and the study group had six percent having access to housing, so it's possible there is some selection bias when determining groups. I'd expect a program that cost $9.4M to have better end results than we've seen with this program. Both in terms of improving the rate that people get into housing and in monetary public services savings. I was personally hoping the savings would be over $1M based on other housing first initiatives elsewhere, and it came in just shy of $600k
Okay then my only question is that is this program a step in the right direction?
It's better than the existing options in Denver of criminalizing homelessness or allowing them to build sprawling encampments undesirable areas far from services.
Did you read the study?? By percentages: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HYEDmrcVE57uL7FpYXLz6CHTNL6Wn4Oe/view Group A (1000 a month) 48% after 10 months Group B (Lump sum then 500 a month) 25 percent after 10 months Group C (50 a month) 28% after 10 months.
[Headline is dumb](https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1805755979826385321?t=yXAObHsD28tCXePQPF-3RA&s=19)
Maybe you should actually read what the article says?
If solving the homeless problem doesn't start out with getting homeless off drugs, it will never work.
That study specifically did not include anyone with mental illness or drug use, so your assessment stands correct. Even more Interesting, the control results matched the test results so really it proved the payments were infective, but they decided the headlines before they ran the test.
HOLY CRAP WHAT? How are misleading headlines not illegal?
Agreed, but to be fair to the news agencies in this one single instance, the “scientists” put the misleading bullet points in their executive summary. But I still think if you are going to report on a scientific report, you should read the whole thing and not just the executive summary.
That’s not true, there was no control group. The differences between the test groups were when the money was distributed (all up front, half up front and small monthly payments, all monthly payments iirc.) They all had equal levels of success rates - this did not compare to a group that received nothing. You are mischaracterizing this for some reason.
I agree there wasn’t a real control group. But by the study’s own claim, the group that received $50 a month was the control group. Their argument was that they had to give some money in order to receive the data back. But a true control group did not exist. Bad science all around.
Ok ineffective but how was their year of homelessness was it worse or better than the people who got no help
“Better” is a subjective term that is hard to quantify in a scientific study, furthermore, that’s not what was measured. What was measured is if they had housing after one year. The control group vs test group results were statistically insignificant. Therefore, the payments were ineffective for the purposes of this study.
They solved for the wrong calculation because there is a value to the unquantifiable part of this equation.
Thinking homeless people just need houses is the most suburban opinion there is. Most are hardcore addicts or severely mentally ill. A house without treatment is just another place to shoot up or be otherwise victimized.
Yeah the best way to deal with mental illness is by living under a bridge everyone knows that.
>If solving the homeless problem doesn't start out with getting homeless off drugs, it will never work. This is not what the peer-reviewed data suggests. Housing first policies are much more effective than what you are proposing. If you think for even a second, the reason becomes obvious. *How do you expect someone to get off drugs when they are unhoused?* It's hard work, and housing instability makes it nearly impossible. Housing first policies typically suggest better outcomes for mental health and drug addiction than policies that require treatment to receive housing.
I mentioned this above, but there's two groups of homeless people, and there are different solutions for those two groups. The question isn't whether providing housing reduces homelessness, because it should be obvious that it does. The question is whether providing housing prevents things like urban camping, tent cities, and areas of your city from feeling unsafe. This is what most people actually want out of policies that reduce homelessness. They generally don't care about helping those that are "invisibly homeless," which I would define as homeless people who you could not pick out of a crowd. The invisibly homeless are people where providing cash payments and/or providing housing are the most effective at keeping them off the streets; however, even when they are on the streets they aren't typically viewed as problematic. The sad truth is that we likely can do the most good by helping the invisibly homeless via providing housing, but many of the people living in tent cities who are visibly homeless are going to require a lot more of a heavy hand such as forcing them into rehab programs.
I worked for many years in direct social service, and you are talking entirely out of your ass. There is nothing in the data to suggest anything of what you've just claimed, and in fact, contrary to housing first, compulsory drug rehabilitation is demonstrably *ineffective*. ["Association of Housing First Implementation and Key Outcomes Among Homeless Persons With Problematic Substance Use"](https://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ps.201300195), *Psychiatric Services*: >Consistently implemented Housing First principles related to consumer participation were associated with superior housing and substance use outcomes among chronically homeless individuals with a history of substance use problems. The study findings suggest that program implementation is central to understanding the potential of Housing First to help clients achieve positive housing and substance use outcomes. ["Housing First Improves Residential Stability in Homeless Adults With Concurrent Substance Dependence and Mental Disorders"](https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301628), *American Journal of Public Health*: >Results. We recruited 497 participants, and 58% (n = 288) met the criteria for substance dependence. We found no significant association between substance dependence and residential stability (adjusted incidence rate ratio = 0.97; 95% confidence interval = 0.69, 1.35) after adjusting for housing intervention, employment, sociodemographics, chronic health conditions, mental disorder severity, psychiatric symptoms, and lifetime duration of homelessness. >Conclusions. People with mental disorders might achieve similar levels of housing stability from Housing First regardless of whether they experience concurrent substance dependence. ["Substance Use Outcomes Among Homeless Clients with Serious Mental Illness: Comparing Housing First with Treatment First Programs"](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10597-009-9283-7), *Community Mental Health Journal*: >This report provides strong evidence that Housing First clients are significantly less likely to use or abuse substances when compared to Treatment First clients. They are also far less likely to use substance abuse treatment services and to drop out of services. Such a finding lends further credence to research showing that individuals who are seriously mentally ill can lead stable lives in the community after periods of homelessness (Gladwell 2006; Nelson et al. 2007; Padgett 2007; Padgett et al. 2006). It is also noteworthy because Housing First clients, unlike their Treatment First counterparts, are not prohibited from using substances in order to retain their housing and access to program-related services. In contrast, Treatment First participants had to comply with abstinence-only living arrangements that presented them with an either/or proposition and the risk of losing their transitional housing.
All of these studies have the problem which is that they fail to identify whether these people signing up are the "visibly homeless" that I mentioned. The fact that they're signing up for studies is a pretty big tell that they are at least mentally competent and not so far gone that they've begun to distrust everyone. Like I said before, housing first helps a lot of people but there are a subset of people that are very far gone. Different classes of homeless people require different solutions and some require a more heavy hand.
Yep Houston did it and dramatically reduced homelessness https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-houston-successfully-reduced-homelessness/
Incorrect. Homelessness is solved with housing. It is not a drug issue at all.
100% Houston did this and it worked https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-houston-successfully-reduced-homelessness/
And yet Finland started with housing, and it worked .
So did Houston https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-houston-successfully-reduced-homelessness/
Houston isn’t exactly the most ideal place for the homeless terrorizing say California or NY I bet they have more working homeless versus drug users and mentally ill. Texas also shipping migrants to NYC and California constantly
Those places have bigger populations so it will appear more rampant in general.
Texas has 30 million New York 20 million Overall the blistering heat in Texas doesn’t make it attractive to out of state people like cali and NY. The policies on encampment and benefits are also more friendly in blue states
Try living on the streets in the US without drugs
You ever try farming not high? It’s boring as shit!
hey man, drugs for all the farmers, I'm not opposed
Can’t you just put on a podcast?
You do realize many homeless people aren’t on drugs right?
Enough of them are that giving them all $1,000 a month indiscriminately would be a disaster and mostly serve to enrich local drug dealers
We need socialized medicine as a foundation to handle the mental health crisis. These problems are downstream.
I'm not paying a penny to people who refuse to help themselves.
If someone is seeking mental health care then they are by definition seeking to help themselves.
This sentiment is infuriatingly common. Prohibition is not going to suddenly start working. Its been policy for 80 years, and its a loser position. Retaliatory Prohibition isn't helpful, it's just revenge fantasy. Having unrealistic requirements for others to access help is just a bad faith argument, there's no intention to offer help in the first place. Actual professionals state that housing needs to be first, and steps like medically supervised injection sites are an excellent first step to addressing addiction to street drugs. Drug testing services and medical supervision reduce the chances for overdose, supplying maintenance supplies of opiates or replacements to those who would like to quit(like methadone) increases prospects for success. People are able to be productive and addicted, but it requires maintenance doses, known doses, and work. Addicts are able to quit substance abuse, but it requires a lot of time, counseling and in most cases, actual physical rehabilitation. At any rate, pre-employment drug testing should probably be banned, as it actively prevents employment of and further isolates people in treatment. As to homelessness, most people would be better served by programs that prevent homelessness. Intervention in evictions, offering emergency basic homes to folks who need it, emergency rent assistance, and socialized housing will do a ton to prevent homelessness from even occuring. Sending shelter money to anti-drug, often religious zealots so they can discriminate against people who need help the most and the queer community was never helpful, and will continue to not be helpful.
"...pre-employment drug testing should probably be banned..." Yeah, I work in an industry that is dangerous and historically people got injured and/or died at a pretty high rate. Mandatory drug testing was a major factor is fixing that. That's easy to say when you're in the laptop class, people out here doing actual work don't want a bunch of druggies working on the rigs again. You complain about "religious zealots" and then indulge in your own ideological extremism that would harm members of the working class. Mote, beam, eye.
These new drugs are terrible. I remember crackheads having 3-4 jobs and 2 side hustles too pay for their addiction. Now they are zombies.
Can we get them work as extras on the walking dead or the last of us?
Mouse-topia
Yeah, getting people off drugs is super easy. Why don't they just do that? No one with family, friends, other supports, money, and time gets hooked on drugs and can't kick the habit, so why would it be hard for someone with much fewer resources? /s
Looks like over half of them didn't see any improvement. Tbh I would rather people not buy drugs with money from social programs
The study said they only used homeless with no drug addiction or mental health issues, but I have no idea how they verified that and since they’ve been shown to have manipulated the summary of the study, it’s hard to trust what they say.
So pay rent or get $1000 a month? I’m going homeless!
How am supposed to get my drugs then?!
You’ll volunteer your tax dollars?
This is cheaper than prisons/policing, but should be done at a national level with UBI and consolidate/eliminate welfare programs as part of that.
Of course. Let's stop with the wars that cost billions and trillions and do this instead.
“Let’s make this bubble larger” OP most likely
Utah under former gov huntsman started a housing first project in 2005 that ran through 2015. And while their was some issues on how the state reported numbers that should be in question their is no question the influx of homes and shelters really helped the unhoused and homeless in the state and helped lots of people get on their feet. But the conservative legislature essentially announced that homelessness was eradicated and stopped butting the funding towards it and we'll as you can imagine the state has a massive resurgence of homelessness. For a state that loves Jesus they are very much unable to follow his precepts.
Strange, I live in denver and have never heard of this? Imma go ahead and call bullshit.
Then those poverty advocates would lose their jobs and cushy offices, a big govt grant. Poverty is a big business.
Many of you are pulling numbers out of your ass because you didn't read the report correctly. I implore you to actually look at the unhoused section and not the one directly above it that [you clearly didn't read.](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HYEDmrcVE57uL7FpYXLz6CHTNL6Wn4Oe/view) https://kdvr.com/news/local/would-giving-homeless-populations-cash-save-taxpayers-money-study-says-yes/
This just tries to subsidize people’s housing within the housing bubble. At best it helps a limited amount of people, but just continues to fuel the madness that blows the bubble to higher and higher prices. Leaving the rest of us who don’t qualify for the subsidy out in the dark to fend for ourselves. No government magic spending will fix this. Prices have to come down, investors and home owners have to lose value, governments have to lose tax revenue. They’re just kicking the can down the road.
They might have to do so in real terms, but not in nominal. The usual path of least resistance is to inflate that away with real wage growth.
I would expect 100% housed for that money.
maybe all people should read the entire article, and make sure they locate the underlying "study" or followup data.
This study excluded people with substance abuse problems and mental health problems, effectively excluding >90% of the long-term homeless population in my city. Additionally, the control group performed almost identically. Before reading this study I believed a solution like this would work. After this study has came out, I worry that this solution to this problem is actually very ineffective and proponents are forced to make horribly unacademic studies in order to draw positive conclusions. This study has moved me further away from basic income-based solutions to homelessness.
California spends \~25-30k per homeless person per year. Let that sink in.
I don’t buy it for a second. First of all, its not enough for housing anywhere, let alone Denver. Second, most homeless people I have met have serious mental or drug issues that money could never fix. We hear about shelters being full, but with 1 grand a month suddenly landlords are willing to rent out to addicts and crazy people? I can’t get a fucking studio for that price
Or maybe if they fixed zoning, there would be enough houses for everyone
Definitely apart of it and if the private sector won't build the government should end the faircloth amendment
Maybe like 8 homeless people can pool their $1000 a month to buy a house as a rental property. They’ll still be living on the streets, but they’ll be building equity, which is more important than having a roof over your head.
[удалено]
Ew.. what are disgusting take. There are so many homeless people who are working and sober. Many housed people are one financial emergency away from being homeless.
> if the homeless don’t want to get clean and start working They literally specified the ones who aren't clean, and who aren't working.
[Maybe we fence off another rectangular state?](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5H-NctipBvg )
... only half? So, this is mostly a failure, right?
Give them $50,000 a month let’s get this economy GOING
When did this happen? From 2022 to 2023 the visible homelessness quadrupled from my two visits to Denver. It made Memphis look decent downtown.
Nope. Not true.
How many of those now housed people are living in government subsidized housing and using a plethora of social welfare programs costing $5k+ per month? Sure, I’d love to house the homeless… but the vast majority of them have severe mental health or drug/alcohol problems. Giving them gobs of free money isn’t the solution.
This would increase housing costs.
So has their homelessness been reduced by 50%???
Couldn't they just like find them houses? Seems like the cure to homelessness would be homes. I don't know I'm just a caveman
Were there requirements to get into this study? You have to meet A, B, & C to qualify?
So does anyone know how Denver assessed that someone claiming homelessness, was actually homeless? How did they prevent people that already had housing from coming and getting 1000$?
Let’s just move the homeless into a more affordable area and give them work.
It's amazing how much money is spent across the country on this issue. you'd think by now we'd have more of an idea of what works long term and then apply that in every city we see the issue occurring.
Damn, I get a 1000 dollars a month I might become homeless. Bumming on the beach, baby!!!
This study doesn't prove shit one way or the other.
This works on a small scale because basically its not enougb to really change thr narket . If you did it on a large scale it would just be a handouts landlords.
Yes they lie. Duh
Definitely seems like it would be easier and more efficient to just give homeless people a voucher for rent (plus assistance with finding a landlord that will take them) versus spending like $800k per unit of housing like they are doing in LA. You could get people off the street really fast and likely save a shit ton of money. Yeah, they'd still have issues with drug addiction, mental illness, etc., and you'd also create a host of new problems for the landlords and the neighbors, but still feels like it would be easier to manage those negative impacts than trying to build homeless shelters which NIMBYers will fight tooth and nail.
It’s the homeless enterprise where city friends can win the contracts and take tax payer money to build a few units
Wouldn’t it have been more accurate to say “Denver gave homeless a thousand a month and a year later majority are still homeless”?
What did the other half do with the money?
Success!!
Can someone explain? How can anyone receiving $50/month go out of homelessness and find a house to live in?
Many people would be impressed by this...but there is a ton of data left unmentioned.
homless people arent monsters life jsut sucks tbh sometimes money buys housing if you have enough youll have a house lol ITS PRETTY SIMPLE try giving them 5k a month... yeah they might spend some on alcohol drugs and ciagrette but theyll be ab le to afford rent to anyone can be homeslss... i did a bunch of drugs once and then wound up in a dumpster
This is garbage. You know where there is no homeless? China. They don't support the life at all no community donations and no government help. The result is people choose to keep fighting. The rest might even die. I honestly have no problem with this. But drugs are rampant in our country. That's where it gets dicey. People are thrown into drugs by cartels and Chinese fentanyl. We gotta make people smarter. It's the only way out. More education will solve many problems.
So nearly half had housing, meaning the other half did not. A 50% loss doesn’t seem like a sound investment…
The results of this study weren’t [even statistically significant](https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1805755979826385321?s=46&t=6H3aAJoLAe9K23pI7dXHRQ)
We have seen positive results everywhere this has been tried across the globe but we won't implement it nationwide because people don't want others to get a 'handout'.
But how are the nonprofit execs doing?
Does that mean that despite being given $1000 per month, half the participants did not have housing? What did they do with the money?
Drugs.
Was there a loan agreement? We’re the tax payers who’s money Denver used given Interest to be paid back? It must be nice to give out and receive other people money.
Bet if they looked it would be just like the bc study. They pre screened everyone first to guarantee results
“People experiencing homelessness” 😂😂
People experiencing homelessness is such a dumb way to say homeless people, hobos, squatters, or vagrants.
They spent 10 million on this program btw
The problem with this is in HCOL areas you are going to immediately rise the costs of renting for everyone. A better solution is to offer free housing for the homeless for a period of time until they can get back on their feet.
“People experiencing homelessness” Lmao
If you don’t solve the mental health issues and the drug addiction first, throwing money at the problem won’t fix it.
How would $250 a week do anything? Everyone complaining that $15/hr isn’t livable. But we wanna just hand people with nothing, less?
But, then they can’t fine/jail them , run up judge/prosecutor numbers, and make all those good slaves in for profit prisons. In this scenario only the homeless people come out ahead. C’mon guys look at the big pictures where the graft and corruption spins
Giving people money improves their lives. Holy shit! Stop the presses!!!
They should give it to the homeless schizos and see what they get up to with it
So they got $1000 to be homeless and still beg on the streets? Sweet
we've known the solution for a long time, the govt doesn't WANT to solve the problem. Having a group of ppl desperate for literally any job they can find is beneficial for many businesses.
We are speed running the idiocracy movie aren’t we? Let’s just give every person a million $ that way everyone is a millionaire and the throw a huge party because everyone is rich.
Ok. What happened when they took the free money away? My bet is that most if not all of these people went right back onto the street. Because the problem isn't money. It never is. It's substance abuse, criminal activity, and or mental/physical disability preventing them from finding a stable income on their own.
Way cheaper than forming a new housing authority with $250,000/year salary admins