San Francisco took this thinking to its logical conclusion years ago. "We're spending tens of thousands on services for homeless people. Why don't we just giv

San Francisco took this thinking to its logical conclusion years ago. "We're spending tens of thousands on services for homeless people. Why don't we just give them the money and let them buy what they need?" So the city got rid of the "subcontractors" and started handing out cash. The homeless people (as a group - I'm sure there were exceptions) pretty much treated the assistance as extra money for booze and drugs. Also, you can imagine what happened when homeless people living in other cities learned about cash benefits. Gavin Newsom rose to prominence by changing the system back to what it had been before cash assistance. So we're back to having bureaucrats administering services, because it turns out a whole lot of homeless people are homeless for reasons that go beyond bad luck.