11 ms·

Solve Homelessness: Cut Out The Middle Man

87 points by joelrunyon 16y ago

hardik 16y ago
Interesting, just yesterday I read this critique of patronizing behaviour of the elite towards those whom they do charity for http://retributions.nationalinterest.in/trust-the-poor/ http://retributions.nationalinterest.in/trust-the-poor/ (In context to some welfare schemes in the Indian state of Bihar)
zackblum 16y ago
"Some estimates suggest the state spends £26,000 annually on each homeless person in health, police and prison bills." So £26,000 vs. £794. I'd like to see this replicated.
- nika 16y ago
  That's about $1,300. Or about $7.50 an hour for one month. This is about minimum wage. If they could get minimum wage jobs, they would, and they'd quickly not be homeless. But they can't because students and recent graduates and stay at home moms, etc, get the minimum wage jobs. If we eliminated the minimum wage, then all the jobs that need doing, but whose economic value is $2.75 an hour would come into being. This means that the homeless person would be able to earn that $1,300 in two months. If low cost housing were legalized, they'd be able to live cheaply while getting on their feet and saving for getting a better job. Minimum wage is the idea that we'd rather have someone homeless and not working at $0 an hour than have them have a home and be digging themselves out working for $2.50 an hour.
  - angus77 16y ago
    And if we removed all the oppressive health and safety rules from the heads of the poor landlords, we'd have apartments that someone could afford to live in when they make $1300 a month!
  - eru 16y ago
    Germany does not have a minimum wage (in general), but there are still homeless people. I don't agree with minimum wage. But there are other barriers to full employment, too.
noelchurchill 16y ago
11 of the 13 got off the street, but how did they do it? Maybe a new TV was the motivation but did they get a job, their own home, and are they self sustaining? Or did they just move off the street into welfare housing, living off the state, which offsets the costs savings the article mentions...
- eru 16y ago
  Actually, living in welfare housing may be cheaper for the state than living on the street. Welfare housing costs a few hundred Pound a month. The healthier living conditions, and thus reduced costs to the NHS, alone may be worth it. (And in the USA that would be even more pronounced, because people without medical coverage often wait until their conditions become an emergency.) There was an article a few years ago about some homeless people in L.A. or so cost the state so much, that just paying for their housing is cheaper.
TGJ 16y ago
So does giving the homeless small amounts of money perpetuate the problem since they don't save it? Would larger amounts be able to help them achieve some sort of first step? Like enough money to rent a apartment for 3 months which gives them a chance to get a job vs. enough money to just buy a meal?
pmorici 16y ago
How does, "a new pair of trainers and a television" help someone get off the street? This article is sort of light on facts.
- slavak 16y ago
  On that note, where does a "homeless" person even PUT a television?!
  - _mayo 16y ago
    Maybe it's motivation to get a place to put the television.
nika 16y ago
Sigh. This reminds me of the story about the poor guy in San Francisco who developed a small business (selling flowers? shining shoes? can't remember) but was caught and fined and made homeless (he'd just put down a deposit on an apartment) by the city because he didn't have a business permit.
- koenigdavidmj 16y ago
  Seems like something over which the local media would be quite willing to raise a stink.
- ajays 16y ago
  Good memory! You're thinking of Larry, the shoe-shine guy: http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-06-04/news/17208451_1_larry-moore-shoeshine-man-city-housing http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-06-04/news/17208451_1_larry-... The local media indeed jumped on it, and raised a stink.
  - nika 16y ago
    Thanks for digging up that link. Larry got taken care of because of the stink, but here are thousands of other stories of a similar nature, up and down the spectrum. Many small businesses started by "amateurs" run afoul of regulations, or simply discover that the tax burden is too much in the early days. Once when I started a small business it turned out I'd located my office in a special tax zone that wanted %3 of all revenue earned by the business. I have a friend who spent 4 days in jail because he was caught near a bar without a drivers license. He didn't have ID, couldn't prove who he was and got locked up. They didn't let him make a phone call, and he stayed there until they decided he'd "learned his lesson". This one was sometimes homeless, but not a drunk or drug user. Just lost his ID.
    - GFischer 16y ago
      Here in Uruguay* we have a reasonably good solution, it's a "flat tax" (currently U$ 50/month) that includes healthcare as a benefit, which makes it very useful for a one-man business - for example, most window cleaners, car parkers and other "almost-beggars" pay this tax (the maximum income for the business is U$ 25.000 gross yearly). It's called "Monotributo", if you speak Spanish look it up. (*I believe the same works in Argentina)
nika 16y ago
Also the motivations of the state are based on the motivations of any government. Buracracy is unavoidable. If you're going to be handing out money, it would be better to give it to genuine charities that have an interest in helping the homeless. They generally will be better (imperfect of course, but better) at spending the money to help the most people. The homeless oriented charities I'm aware of do amazing things with small amounts of resources, and they have to scrape by. A real shame when we're blowing a $3.7 trillion dollar budget every year.
- pyre 16y ago
  Well, those charities are able to scrape by due to necessity (if they had more resources the likelihood of some percentage of those resources being wasted increases as their resources do) and because the people are generally more committed. Government bureaucrats generally aren't that motivated to cut corners, nor do they care for much beyond getting their paycheck (and maybe moving up the ladder).
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
speckle 16y ago
My unsupported speculation is that the public see the homeless as people that tumbled downwards because of mental issues and addictions. What's not often considered is the community that they live in - they still have social interactions; they still feel pride and depression and snark and remorse. Mommying them by giving them a bed and curfew isn't just demeaning to a homeless man, it's demeaning to anyone. I'm not sure if this is the right solution but I'm glad to see they're trying new things.
rubashov 16y ago
There are homeless because the flop houses and super cheap apartments (think ten to a bathroom) have been killed off by permitting and zoning laws. To solve homelessness you just need to make it legal to open up a for profit ten dollar a night mens dorm somewhere in a city. Hitler lived in one for a couple years. As it is the shelters are all government run and sane homeless people avoid them because of rampant drugs and sexual abuse.
- nika 16y ago
  Am I supposed to cite Godwins Law now? (Just kidding... ) There are many cities where these permitting and zoning laws work as a subsidy for wealthy people. For instance, they do not want walmart and they do not want more apartments built in my town (which is a very liberal university town) because they want to "preserve its character"... but they go way overboard. The effect of this is that home prices go up significantly and they profit when they sell. This seems to be common among towns up and down the west coast. I've seen it in California, Oregon and Washington. Artificial constraint on the supply of homes means more homelessness, but also, more returns for homeowners there. So, they have a financial incentive to vote to prevent these apartments from being built. And I'm talking $600-$1,000 a month apartments, not even cheap housing.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    The problem is that in aggregate terms, the more cheap housing you have in an area, the more crime, violence, graffiti and litter you're going to have. Not because all persons who live in such places are always and inherently bad, but because a much larger percentage of the people who can only afford such places do have certain cultural, behavioral and educational qualities that cause them to breed such things. You enable the Ramen-eating college student to live there, but also the basket case. The struggling artist but also the drug-dealer or gang member. The single guy living alone for the first time with an apartment full of books, but also the extended family of 10 immigrants with 5 kids and varying degree of legality, all of whom who will be consuming government services and imposing government costs and externalities out of proportion to their taxable income contributions back. Having a town where the prices are so high only doctors and lawyers can afford to live might mean there's less diversity, but also the streets and lawns will be nice and safe and quiet, speaking in general. Given a choice only between these two imperfect extremes I know I'd take the second one.
shaddi 16y ago
This pretty great, but it's also pretty anecdotal. How were these 13 chosen (probably not randomly)? What is the outcome going to be in 6 months? A year? Five years? Based on the (admittedly not extensive) work I've done trying to help homeless folks get back on their feet, a lot of people do just need some money to get their life back in order. For instance, it's hard to apply for jobs when you don't have an address or a phone number for people to call you back at. Giving someone the ability to not have to worry about making their rent payment for a couple months can be huge. But a significant portion of the cases I've seen can't be solved this simply. Despite what this article says substance abuse issues /are/ a big factor for a lot of the homeless people I've worked with. Providing cash money can alleviate some of their problems in the short term, but there are generally more fundamental obstacles that are holding people back. If you don't address these issues people can very easily fall back into the trap. The best intervention I've ever seen for a homeless person is an employer who is willing to give them a steady job and be understanding about the difficulty of the situation they're going through. Anything that can get a homeless person to this point should be encouraged. Sometimes that can mean covering their expenses for a while to get back on their feet. But often it means providing substance abuse support; often it means teaching job skills; often it means connecting them with the right social service or civil society groups.
- nika 16y ago
  Or, for those who aren't quite ready to do a steady job, the legalization of interent or part time jobs. Let them work when they are sober and not when they are not. Unfortunately the burden on businesses for "hiring someone" is so high due to regulations that it only makes sense to make positions that are full time, or part time with dedicated hours. There are a lot of jobs that could exist where people worked some number of hours when they wanted to work, but where if they didn't show up for several weeks someone else could be doing it while they're gone. Businesses would be willing to hire people on such terms (especially for some jobs like construction, or cleaning, etc) but they have to create positions that are focused on specific people due to the impact of regulations. Hell, under Obamacare anyone who hires a kid to mow their lawn and pays them $400 over the course of a year has to file a 1099 on them!
karzeem 16y ago
Milton Friedman's idea for alleviating poverty was a variation of this idea. It's called the negative income tax and the basic idea is that people below a certain threshold get cash from the government each year. The further below the threshold you are, the more cash you get. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax
- wisty 16y ago
  TA idea is a bit different, the homeless guys are asked what they want. If you just handed them the cash, they'd probably blow it, but giving them a choice makes them think about the future, and how they can improve it.
- arethuza 16y ago
  That sounds a lot like the Working Tax Credit in the UK - which has had a lot of problems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_tax_credit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_tax_credit [NB I think the problems were more to do with the poor implementation of the scheme rather than the idea itself].
  - eru 16y ago
    Those schemes (and similar) are also known as basic income. You have to make sure that the effective marginal tax rates stay low, even on small incomes. That's something lots of welfare payments get wrong.
- cletus 16y ago
  This isn't actually too far from what we have now and is a terrible idea. Below a certain income level in the Australia and parts of Europe (in all probability) you not only pay no taxes but you get low income credits. This is a negative income tax as you describe it. The problem? Let me give you an example (and this is purely fictional): Joe earns $5,000 a year in part-time work. He pays no tax. He gets $2,000 a year in government assistance. Marginal rate of tax: -40%. Net income: $7,000 Total tax rate: -40% Joe finds a better paying job and now earns $15,000 a year. Now he's paying $3,000 a year in tax and his low income tax credit is gone. Marginal rate of tax: 30% Net income: $12,000 Total tax rate: 20% Seems reasonable right? Now consider the difference: Extra gross income: $10,000 Extra net income: $5,000 Marginal rate of tax: 50% You see this with government benefits (that taper off and then cut out at certain income levels). The marginal tax rate low income earners end up paying can be well beyond 50%. Add in child support and this can go over 90%. Call this a disincentive to work. Let me give you a concrete example: http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/payments/chartc.htm http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/payments/... > Income over these amounts reduces your rate of pension by 50 cents in the dollar (single), or 25 cents in the dollar each (for couples). For transitional or saved cases, income over these amounts reduces your rate of pension by 40 cents in the dollar (single), or 20 cents in the dollar each (for couples). Bear in mind that you're losing 50 cents of tax free income for every $1 of taxable income that you gain.
ajays 16y ago
Unfortunately, the way the system is setup, things won't change anytime soon. The reality is: often cities' homelessness departments are prime locations for employing cronies and operatives. For example: the City of San Francisco spends $70M per year (about $10K per homeless person, given that the population of the homeless is just under 7K). On top of that you have churches and other charities helping out. And yet I see homeless people all around, sleeping in doorways, on sidewalks, etc. Heck, in the shadow of City Hall you'll see dozens of homeless people. But the department of homelessness (I don't recall the name of the department) was filled with people from (ex-mayor) Gavin Newsom's campaign staff (from his unsuccessful run for Governor). There is no accountability. There are no metrics on how many homeless people are in the City. All we have is a massive bureaucracy that is making a living off of claiming to help homeless people.
- kevin_morrill 16y ago
  Where does the $70M figure come from? Not challenging you, just want to be able to cite toe source myself. This is outrageous.
  - krschultz 16y ago
    Is it? Thats $87 per citizen in SF. That accounts for 0.39% of my taxes in a given year, and I don't even make that much money because I just graduated college.
    - jonknee 16y ago
      You're paying $22k in city taxes a year and don't consider yourself making much money?
      - krschultz 16y ago
        "My taxes" != city taxes, but you probably already knew that and are trying to pivot the argument to be about me instead of about my point. That is usually a sign you can't argue my point. I'm saying, $87 a year out of my taxes is a tiny amount when you consider what you pay for other things. How much do you spend a year on defense? Since the effective tax rate is around 30% (roughly) and the defense budget is around 20% of the federal budget (roughly), I pay around 52x more for defense than for helping homeless people in a given year. Is defense 52x more important than social services? And I say this being a defense contractor who entire livelyhood depends on taxes and the military industrial complex.
prawn 16y ago
Check out this (relevant) site I found this morning - a quick browser 'game' revealing some of the choices that inevitably keep many poor people poor: http://playspent.org/ http://playspent.org/ You start with $1000 and need to survive the month while trying to get a job, live, eat, etc. A few frustrating choices along the way that might not seem realistic, but may prove insightful for some.
- thwarted 16y ago
  This would be more a more convincing exercise if it didn't force me to make a choice between paying either the gas or electric bill when I could afford to pay both (and then forcing me to incur an even larger fee to get it turned back on), and made me pay to fix the leak in my rental apartment's sink. It would also have been nice to know that I've got a sick mom, a kid, and a pet at the beginning of the month, rather than springing them on me at seemingly random points. I found out on day 17 that I had a dog -- that's one hungry dog. I also held a yardsale with the explicit purpose of getting rid of stuff since I didn't have enough room for it all in my rental, and rather than feel good about that, it made me feel bad for only making $150 from the yard sale. I mean, it was rough, and I had to tell my kid no a bunch of times and we aren't eating all that great (and I had to avoid playing the lottery and miss a friend's wedding). It was interesting, and reminded me of Morgan Spurlock's "30 Days" show.
  - prawn 16y ago
    I hear you. I feel like they could've avoided some of those situations and still conveyed the situations poorer people might find themselves in regardless of which choices they made in life.
known 16y ago
I think 1st world should ideally, 1. Minimize income tax. 2. Maximize wealth tax. 3. Impose tax on idle cash.
- danenania 16y ago
  How about: 1. Provide only essential government services 2. Enforce the law for everyone--no limited liability, no secret police, no pollution quotas, no wars of aggression 3. If they aren't hurting anyone or the environment, leave productive people and their wealth alone
  - swift 16y ago
    A nice idea, but in the end I suspect the tricky part is the definition of "essential government services" and the criteria for determining whether a person or corporation is "hurting anyone or the environment".
    - danenania 16y ago
      Sure, but at least there would be something to try for.
      - krschultz 16y ago
        But what are you trying for? The definition of the statement in your mind is clear but it doesn't mean a damn thing. I think we should aim for the government only providing essential services. But one of those services is making sure everyone has healthcare insurance available to them at a rate that they can afford. You and I know probably agree on very little about the size of the government, even though we both agree that the government should aim to provide only the minimum essential services.
        danenania 16y ago
        I know, I'm just saying it would be a whole lot better to have this debate and take whatever comes out of it than the current situation, which is mostly cynical and corrupt sociopaths on both sides who aren't in any way interested in bettering the country. In other words, I'm just as happy to see someone like Dennis Kucinich do well as I am Ron Paul, even though ideologically I agree more with Paul. I think we should be more concerned with replacing evil people with good people than the particulars of one platform or another. The common grounds (stop the wars, stop corporate welfare) are vastly more important than the differences like health care or welfare for people who actually need help.
jwinter 16y ago
The Housing First initiative in the US has seen some success: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First
sethg 16y ago
I have a theory that “welfare” and “charity” for the poor, at least as practiced in the US, is frequently an exchange: impoverished people abase themselves in front of a representative of the government or some charitable organization, and they get benefits in exchange for portraying themselves as suitable members of The Deserving Poor. A program that merely gave money to people who don’t have any money, even if it was more efficient (because of lower overhead), would be politically unsustainable. A local paper here just ran an article¹ about how a state rep was indignant because, out of about $50 million the state gave out in welfare-benefit debit cards last year, about $200,000 was spent on “non-essentials” (principally, at liquor stores²). $827 at Victoria’s Secret outlets! $664 at pet supply stores! For shame! ¹ http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1316850 http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=... ² I don’t know if these guardians of the public purse confirmed that this money was spent on liquor and not on, say, chips and peanuts.
bugsy 16y ago
I've worked with the homeless off and on over the years. Social workers are nice people and well intentioned do-gooders, and they tend to want to infantilize and control homeless people "for their own good". They develop a symbiotic relationship with some hopeless cases. But there are a lot of homeless that find participation in a system that is designed to control them demeaning and won't participate. Among these are many skilled people who became homeless during a rough patch and simply can't get back into society because they have no place to take a shower with their own phone and a bed where they can get rest and then go on a job interview or go out and round up clients for work even. Being in the shelter system often means you have to get in line hours in advance for a spot, and have to follow various rules that prevent you from having time to get a job. Some friends and I had created a small unlicensed shelter one year for homeless people that didn't want to participate in the normal system. We had a bouncer who screened for drugs and other than that there were no requirements. Homeless people responded well to this and began policing themselves and reporting on troublemakers (sneaking in drugs.) We did have people come in to volunteer. Talking afresh to the guests, people found out their history and skills and a network of impromptu referrals was set up which managed to get the 50% of them that wanted a new start into jobs and houses. There were no relapses or problems with these as they were men who had fallen on hard times but who were clean and wanting to work and had skills. Simply finding them a stable place enabled them to fix their own lives without guidance or control from others, neither of which they wanted. That left another 50% that was truly transient or didn't want to work. Once you institutionalize the system it becomes a method of controlling people. A lot of people don't want to be controlled. Now that's my experience. In cities, there's a problem with the long term chronically homeless. People who never made it back and who have given up. The issue with this minority of homeless is that they cost a fortune in medical, police and other services each year. For example, if it gets very cold and you can't find a bed then you commit some petty crime to get arrested. Or they might injure themselves when desperate just to get a place to stay at the hospital. Or maybe they are just very ill. There are some homeless people in cold cities who have medical problems who are costing more than $1 million a year in public services. There's a homeless advocate Philip F. Mangano who was "homeless czar" under Bush who has promoted the idea of finding no-questions-asked housing for the chronically homeless. This is not the people who can find a job with a stable place who just need first month's rent and a deposit, but people who are not going to be able to work long term and who are costing a fortune. Placing them in public studio apartment housing at a cost of perhaps $8,000 a year in rent saves money over all. One key is no restrictions. They can bring in alcohol and drink in their room. They can come and go at all hours. It is their own apartment. When presented like this, they are more likely to take the deal and get off the street. Does it cost money to do this? Yes. But the idea is that it costs less than providing ad hoc services. Having a stable place makes them more likely to make doctor's appointments. No longer are they coming to the hospital with costly to treat hypothermia or frostbite. Here's a couple articles about Mangano's work: http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-01-14/news/17408204_1_mangano-executive-director-philip-mangano-total-homeless-population http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-01-14/news/17408204_1_mangan... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/29/AR2008122902505.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12...
zach 16y ago
San Francisco used to spend generously on direct payments to homeless individuals, until Proposition N was passed in 2002, redirecting the money to services for the homeless. This measure was championed by Supervisor Gavin Newsom who, as we know, was elected as Mayor the next year. The arguments summarized here on Wikipedia are a good introduction to some of the issues in play here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Care_Not_Cash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Care_Not_Cash

87 points by joelrunyon 16y ago

Interesting, just yesterday I read this critique of patronizing behaviour of the elite towards those whom they do charity for http://retributions.nationalinterest.in/trust-the-poor/ http://retributions.nationalinterest.in/trust-the-poor/ (In context to some welfare schemes in the Indian state of Bihar)

zackblum 16y ago

"Some estimates suggest the state spends £26,000 annually on each homeless person in health, police and prison bills." So £26,000 vs. £794. I'd like to see this replicated.

nika 16y ago
That's about $1,300. Or about $7.50 an hour for one month. This is about minimum wage. If they could get minimum wage jobs, they would, and they'd quickly not be homeless. But they can't because students and recent graduates and stay at home moms, etc, get the minimum wage jobs. If we eliminated the minimum wage, then all the jobs that need doing, but whose economic value is $2.75 an hour would come into being. This means that the homeless person would be able to earn that $1,300 in two months. If low cost housing were legalized, they'd be able to live cheaply while getting on their feet and saving for getting a better job. Minimum wage is the idea that we'd rather have someone homeless and not working at $0 an hour than have them have a home and be digging themselves out working for $2.50 an hour.
- angus77 16y ago
  And if we removed all the oppressive health and safety rules from the heads of the poor landlords, we'd have apartments that someone could afford to live in when they make $1300 a month!
- eru 16y ago
  Germany does not have a minimum wage (in general), but there are still homeless people. I don't agree with minimum wage. But there are other barriers to full employment, too.

noelchurchill 16y ago

11 of the 13 got off the street, but how did they do it? Maybe a new TV was the motivation but did they get a job, their own home, and are they self sustaining? Or did they just move off the street into welfare housing, living off the state, which offsets the costs savings the article mentions...

eru 16y ago
Actually, living in welfare housing may be cheaper for the state than living on the street. Welfare housing costs a few hundred Pound a month. The healthier living conditions, and thus reduced costs to the NHS, alone may be worth it. (And in the USA that would be even more pronounced, because people without medical coverage often wait until their conditions become an emergency.) There was an article a few years ago about some homeless people in L.A. or so cost the state so much, that just paying for their housing is cheaper.

TGJ 16y ago

So does giving the homeless small amounts of money perpetuate the problem since they don't save it? Would larger amounts be able to help them achieve some sort of first step? Like enough money to rent a apartment for 3 months which gives them a chance to get a job vs. enough money to just buy a meal?

pmorici 16y ago

How does, "a new pair of trainers and a television" help someone get off the street? This article is sort of light on facts.

slavak 16y ago
On that note, where does a "homeless" person even PUT a television?!
- _mayo 16y ago
  Maybe it's motivation to get a place to put the television.

nika 16y ago

Sigh. This reminds me of the story about the poor guy in San Francisco who developed a small business (selling flowers? shining shoes? can't remember) but was caught and fined and made homeless (he'd just put down a deposit on an apartment) by the city because he didn't have a business permit.

koenigdavidmj 16y ago
Seems like something over which the local media would be quite willing to raise a stink.
ajays 16y ago
Good memory! You're thinking of Larry, the shoe-shine guy: http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-06-04/news/17208451_1_larry-moore-shoeshine-man-city-housing http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-06-04/news/17208451_1_larry-... The local media indeed jumped on it, and raised a stink.
- nika 16y ago
  Thanks for digging up that link. Larry got taken care of because of the stink, but here are thousands of other stories of a similar nature, up and down the spectrum. Many small businesses started by "amateurs" run afoul of regulations, or simply discover that the tax burden is too much in the early days. Once when I started a small business it turned out I'd located my office in a special tax zone that wanted %3 of all revenue earned by the business. I have a friend who spent 4 days in jail because he was caught near a bar without a drivers license. He didn't have ID, couldn't prove who he was and got locked up. They didn't let him make a phone call, and he stayed there until they decided he'd "learned his lesson". This one was sometimes homeless, but not a drunk or drug user. Just lost his ID.
  - GFischer 16y ago
    Here in Uruguay* we have a reasonably good solution, it's a "flat tax" (currently U$ 50/month) that includes healthcare as a benefit, which makes it very useful for a one-man business - for example, most window cleaners, car parkers and other "almost-beggars" pay this tax (the maximum income for the business is U$ 25.000 gross yearly). It's called "Monotributo", if you speak Spanish look it up. (*I believe the same works in Argentina)

nika 16y ago

Also the motivations of the state are based on the motivations of any government. Buracracy is unavoidable. If you're going to be handing out money, it would be better to give it to genuine charities that have an interest in helping the homeless. They generally will be better (imperfect of course, but better) at spending the money to help the most people. The homeless oriented charities I'm aware of do amazing things with small amounts of resources, and they have to scrape by. A real shame when we're blowing a $3.7 trillion dollar budget every year.

pyre 16y ago
Well, those charities are able to scrape by due to necessity (if they had more resources the likelihood of some percentage of those resources being wasted increases as their resources do) and because the people are generally more committed. Government bureaucrats generally aren't that motivated to cut corners, nor do they care for much beyond getting their paycheck (and maybe moving up the ladder).
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

speckle 16y ago

My unsupported speculation is that the public see the homeless as people that tumbled downwards because of mental issues and addictions. What's not often considered is the community that they live in - they still have social interactions; they still feel pride and depression and snark and remorse. Mommying them by giving them a bed and curfew isn't just demeaning to a homeless man, it's demeaning to anyone. I'm not sure if this is the right solution but I'm glad to see they're trying new things.

rubashov 16y ago

There are homeless because the flop houses and super cheap apartments (think ten to a bathroom) have been killed off by permitting and zoning laws. To solve homelessness you just need to make it legal to open up a for profit ten dollar a night mens dorm somewhere in a city. Hitler lived in one for a couple years. As it is the shelters are all government run and sane homeless people avoid them because of rampant drugs and sexual abuse.

nika 16y ago
Am I supposed to cite Godwins Law now? (Just kidding... ) There are many cities where these permitting and zoning laws work as a subsidy for wealthy people. For instance, they do not want walmart and they do not want more apartments built in my town (which is a very liberal university town) because they want to "preserve its character"... but they go way overboard. The effect of this is that home prices go up significantly and they profit when they sell. This seems to be common among towns up and down the west coast. I've seen it in California, Oregon and Washington. Artificial constraint on the supply of homes means more homelessness, but also, more returns for homeowners there. So, they have a financial incentive to vote to prevent these apartments from being built. And I'm talking $600-$1,000 a month apartments, not even cheap housing.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  The problem is that in aggregate terms, the more cheap housing you have in an area, the more crime, violence, graffiti and litter you're going to have. Not because all persons who live in such places are always and inherently bad, but because a much larger percentage of the people who can only afford such places do have certain cultural, behavioral and educational qualities that cause them to breed such things. You enable the Ramen-eating college student to live there, but also the basket case. The struggling artist but also the drug-dealer or gang member. The single guy living alone for the first time with an apartment full of books, but also the extended family of 10 immigrants with 5 kids and varying degree of legality, all of whom who will be consuming government services and imposing government costs and externalities out of proportion to their taxable income contributions back. Having a town where the prices are so high only doctors and lawyers can afford to live might mean there's less diversity, but also the streets and lawns will be nice and safe and quiet, speaking in general. Given a choice only between these two imperfect extremes I know I'd take the second one.

shaddi 16y ago

This pretty great, but it's also pretty anecdotal. How were these 13 chosen (probably not randomly)? What is the outcome going to be in 6 months? A year? Five years? Based on the (admittedly not extensive) work I've done trying to help homeless folks get back on their feet, a lot of people do just need some money to get their life back in order. For instance, it's hard to apply for jobs when you don't have an address or a phone number for people to call you back at. Giving someone the ability to not have to worry about making their rent payment for a couple months can be huge. But a significant portion of the cases I've seen can't be solved this simply. Despite what this article says substance abuse issues /are/ a big factor for a lot of the homeless people I've worked with. Providing cash money can alleviate some of their problems in the short term, but there are generally more fundamental obstacles that are holding people back. If you don't address these issues people can very easily fall back into the trap. The best intervention I've ever seen for a homeless person is an employer who is willing to give them a steady job and be understanding about the difficulty of the situation they're going through. Anything that can get a homeless person to this point should be encouraged. Sometimes that can mean covering their expenses for a while to get back on their feet. But often it means providing substance abuse support; often it means teaching job skills; often it means connecting them with the right social service or civil society groups.

nika 16y ago
Or, for those who aren't quite ready to do a steady job, the legalization of interent or part time jobs. Let them work when they are sober and not when they are not. Unfortunately the burden on businesses for "hiring someone" is so high due to regulations that it only makes sense to make positions that are full time, or part time with dedicated hours. There are a lot of jobs that could exist where people worked some number of hours when they wanted to work, but where if they didn't show up for several weeks someone else could be doing it while they're gone. Businesses would be willing to hire people on such terms (especially for some jobs like construction, or cleaning, etc) but they have to create positions that are focused on specific people due to the impact of regulations. Hell, under Obamacare anyone who hires a kid to mow their lawn and pays them $400 over the course of a year has to file a 1099 on them!

karzeem 16y ago

Milton Friedman's idea for alleviating poverty was a variation of this idea. It's called the negative income tax and the basic idea is that people below a certain threshold get cash from the government each year. The further below the threshold you are, the more cash you get. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

wisty 16y ago
TA idea is a bit different, the homeless guys are asked what they want. If you just handed them the cash, they'd probably blow it, but giving them a choice makes them think about the future, and how they can improve it.
arethuza 16y ago
That sounds a lot like the Working Tax Credit in the UK - which has had a lot of problems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_tax_credit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_tax_credit [NB I think the problems were more to do with the poor implementation of the scheme rather than the idea itself].
- eru 16y ago
  Those schemes (and similar) are also known as basic income. You have to make sure that the effective marginal tax rates stay low, even on small incomes. That's something lots of welfare payments get wrong.
cletus 16y ago
This isn't actually too far from what we have now and is a terrible idea. Below a certain income level in the Australia and parts of Europe (in all probability) you not only pay no taxes but you get low income credits. This is a negative income tax as you describe it. The problem? Let me give you an example (and this is purely fictional): Joe earns $5,000 a year in part-time work. He pays no tax. He gets $2,000 a year in government assistance. Marginal rate of tax: -40%. Net income: $7,000 Total tax rate: -40% Joe finds a better paying job and now earns $15,000 a year. Now he's paying $3,000 a year in tax and his low income tax credit is gone. Marginal rate of tax: 30% Net income: $12,000 Total tax rate: 20% Seems reasonable right? Now consider the difference: Extra gross income: $10,000 Extra net income: $5,000 Marginal rate of tax: 50% You see this with government benefits (that taper off and then cut out at certain income levels). The marginal tax rate low income earners end up paying can be well beyond 50%. Add in child support and this can go over 90%. Call this a disincentive to work. Let me give you a concrete example: http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/payments/chartc.htm http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/payments/... > Income over these amounts reduces your rate of pension by 50 cents in the dollar (single), or 25 cents in the dollar each (for couples). For transitional or saved cases, income over these amounts reduces your rate of pension by 40 cents in the dollar (single), or 20 cents in the dollar each (for couples). Bear in mind that you're losing 50 cents of tax free income for every $1 of taxable income that you gain.

ajays 16y ago

Unfortunately, the way the system is setup, things won't change anytime soon. The reality is: often cities' homelessness departments are prime locations for employing cronies and operatives. For example: the City of San Francisco spends $70M per year (about $10K per homeless person, given that the population of the homeless is just under 7K). On top of that you have churches and other charities helping out. And yet I see homeless people all around, sleeping in doorways, on sidewalks, etc. Heck, in the shadow of City Hall you'll see dozens of homeless people. But the department of homelessness (I don't recall the name of the department) was filled with people from (ex-mayor) Gavin Newsom's campaign staff (from his unsuccessful run for Governor). There is no accountability. There are no metrics on how many homeless people are in the City. All we have is a massive bureaucracy that is making a living off of claiming to help homeless people.

kevin_morrill 16y ago
Where does the $70M figure come from? Not challenging you, just want to be able to cite toe source myself. This is outrageous.
- krschultz 16y ago
  Is it? Thats $87 per citizen in SF. That accounts for 0.39% of my taxes in a given year, and I don't even make that much money because I just graduated college.
  - jonknee 16y ago
    You're paying $22k in city taxes a year and don't consider yourself making much money?
    - krschultz 16y ago
      "My taxes" != city taxes, but you probably already knew that and are trying to pivot the argument to be about me instead of about my point. That is usually a sign you can't argue my point. I'm saying, $87 a year out of my taxes is a tiny amount when you consider what you pay for other things. How much do you spend a year on defense? Since the effective tax rate is around 30% (roughly) and the defense budget is around 20% of the federal budget (roughly), I pay around 52x more for defense than for helping homeless people in a given year. Is defense 52x more important than social services? And I say this being a defense contractor who entire livelyhood depends on taxes and the military industrial complex.

prawn 16y ago

Check out this (relevant) site I found this morning - a quick browser 'game' revealing some of the choices that inevitably keep many poor people poor: http://playspent.org/ http://playspent.org/ You start with $1000 and need to survive the month while trying to get a job, live, eat, etc. A few frustrating choices along the way that might not seem realistic, but may prove insightful for some.

thwarted 16y ago
This would be more a more convincing exercise if it didn't force me to make a choice between paying either the gas or electric bill when I could afford to pay both (and then forcing me to incur an even larger fee to get it turned back on), and made me pay to fix the leak in my rental apartment's sink. It would also have been nice to know that I've got a sick mom, a kid, and a pet at the beginning of the month, rather than springing them on me at seemingly random points. I found out on day 17 that I had a dog -- that's one hungry dog. I also held a yardsale with the explicit purpose of getting rid of stuff since I didn't have enough room for it all in my rental, and rather than feel good about that, it made me feel bad for only making $150 from the yard sale. I mean, it was rough, and I had to tell my kid no a bunch of times and we aren't eating all that great (and I had to avoid playing the lottery and miss a friend's wedding). It was interesting, and reminded me of Morgan Spurlock's "30 Days" show.
- prawn 16y ago
  I hear you. I feel like they could've avoided some of those situations and still conveyed the situations poorer people might find themselves in regardless of which choices they made in life.

known 16y ago

I think 1st world should ideally, 1. Minimize income tax. 2. Maximize wealth tax. 3. Impose tax on idle cash.

danenania 16y ago
How about: 1. Provide only essential government services 2. Enforce the law for everyone--no limited liability, no secret police, no pollution quotas, no wars of aggression 3. If they aren't hurting anyone or the environment, leave productive people and their wealth alone
- swift 16y ago
  A nice idea, but in the end I suspect the tricky part is the definition of "essential government services" and the criteria for determining whether a person or corporation is "hurting anyone or the environment".
  - danenania 16y ago
    Sure, but at least there would be something to try for.
    - krschultz 16y ago
      But what are you trying for? The definition of the statement in your mind is clear but it doesn't mean a damn thing. I think we should aim for the government only providing essential services. But one of those services is making sure everyone has healthcare insurance available to them at a rate that they can afford. You and I know probably agree on very little about the size of the government, even though we both agree that the government should aim to provide only the minimum essential services.
      - danenania 16y ago
        I know, I'm just saying it would be a whole lot better to have this debate and take whatever comes out of it than the current situation, which is mostly cynical and corrupt sociopaths on both sides who aren't in any way interested in bettering the country. In other words, I'm just as happy to see someone like Dennis Kucinich do well as I am Ron Paul, even though ideologically I agree more with Paul. I think we should be more concerned with replacing evil people with good people than the particulars of one platform or another. The common grounds (stop the wars, stop corporate welfare) are vastly more important than the differences like health care or welfare for people who actually need help.

jwinter 16y ago

The Housing First initiative in the US has seen some success: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First

sethg 16y ago

I have a theory that “welfare” and “charity” for the poor, at least as practiced in the US, is frequently an exchange: impoverished people abase themselves in front of a representative of the government or some charitable organization, and they get benefits in exchange for portraying themselves as suitable members of The Deserving Poor. A program that merely gave money to people who don’t have any money, even if it was more efficient (because of lower overhead), would be politically unsustainable. A local paper here just ran an article¹ about how a state rep was indignant because, out of about $50 million the state gave out in welfare-benefit debit cards last year, about $200,000 was spent on “non-essentials” (principally, at liquor stores²). $827 at Victoria’s Secret outlets! $664 at pet supply stores! For shame! ¹ http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1316850 http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=... ² I don’t know if these guardians of the public purse confirmed that this money was spent on liquor and not on, say, chips and peanuts.

bugsy 16y ago

I've worked with the homeless off and on over the years. Social workers are nice people and well intentioned do-gooders, and they tend to want to infantilize and control homeless people "for their own good". They develop a symbiotic relationship with some hopeless cases. But there are a lot of homeless that find participation in a system that is designed to control them demeaning and won't participate. Among these are many skilled people who became homeless during a rough patch and simply can't get back into society because they have no place to take a shower with their own phone and a bed where they can get rest and then go on a job interview or go out and round up clients for work even. Being in the shelter system often means you have to get in line hours in advance for a spot, and have to follow various rules that prevent you from having time to get a job. Some friends and I had created a small unlicensed shelter one year for homeless people that didn't want to participate in the normal system. We had a bouncer who screened for drugs and other than that there were no requirements. Homeless people responded well to this and began policing themselves and reporting on troublemakers (sneaking in drugs.) We did have people come in to volunteer. Talking afresh to the guests, people found out their history and skills and a network of impromptu referrals was set up which managed to get the 50% of them that wanted a new start into jobs and houses. There were no relapses or problems with these as they were men who had fallen on hard times but who were clean and wanting to work and had skills. Simply finding them a stable place enabled them to fix their own lives without guidance or control from others, neither of which they wanted. That left another 50% that was truly transient or didn't want to work. Once you institutionalize the system it becomes a method of controlling people. A lot of people don't want to be controlled. Now that's my experience. In cities, there's a problem with the long term chronically homeless. People who never made it back and who have given up. The issue with this minority of homeless is that they cost a fortune in medical, police and other services each year. For example, if it gets very cold and you can't find a bed then you commit some petty crime to get arrested. Or they might injure themselves when desperate just to get a place to stay at the hospital. Or maybe they are just very ill. There are some homeless people in cold cities who have medical problems who are costing more than $1 million a year in public services. There's a homeless advocate Philip F. Mangano who was "homeless czar" under Bush who has promoted the idea of finding no-questions-asked housing for the chronically homeless. This is not the people who can find a job with a stable place who just need first month's rent and a deposit, but people who are not going to be able to work long term and who are costing a fortune. Placing them in public studio apartment housing at a cost of perhaps $8,000 a year in rent saves money over all. One key is no restrictions. They can bring in alcohol and drink in their room. They can come and go at all hours. It is their own apartment. When presented like this, they are more likely to take the deal and get off the street. Does it cost money to do this? Yes. But the idea is that it costs less than providing ad hoc services. Having a stable place makes them more likely to make doctor's appointments. No longer are they coming to the hospital with costly to treat hypothermia or frostbite. Here's a couple articles about Mangano's work: http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-01-14/news/17408204_1_mangano-executive-director-philip-mangano-total-homeless-population http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-01-14/news/17408204_1_mangan... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/29/AR2008122902505.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12...

zach 16y ago

San Francisco used to spend generously on direct payments to homeless individuals, until Proposition N was passed in 2002, redirecting the money to services for the homeless. This measure was championed by Supervisor Gavin Newsom who, as we know, was elected as Mayor the next year. The arguments summarized here on Wikipedia are a good introduction to some of the issues in play here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Care_Not_Cash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Care_Not_Cash