This criticism is a little weird to type as someone typically pretty far left. But that just encourages dependency on government and it strips people of autono

This criticism is a little weird to type as someone typically pretty far left. But that just encourages dependency on government and it strips people of autonomy, robbing them of developing the skills they need to not only survive, but to really thrive. Because some things won't be deemed essential. And now someone has to arbitrate that. And so the government is now making decisions about where you are allowed to live. What constitutes essential housing? Are you allowed to live in non-essential housing and "top up" or do you get stuck with what the expert committee has decided? We have government-owned public housing in my country, and it has many flaws, in practice. Long wait-lists to get an apartment, no choice of where your apartment is, and little in the way of power to act should you need to move or have something fixed. If they were given cash equivalent to the value of that housing on the market (a program we've been shifting towards but which lacks funding) then they can rent a house where they need it. Got a job? Move. Landlord is neglectful? Well, at the very least you can probably move. There's a middle ground, of course. In the case of housing in particular, it might be reasonable to mandate a proportion of social assistance cash payments be spent on rent, should a person end up interacting with homelessness services. (But this is of course assuming you actually can rent anything with that... sometimes not.)