The new study, funded by the government and carried out by King’s College London (KCL) and the homelessness charity Greater Change, will recruit 360 people in England and Wales. Half will continue to get help from frontline charities. The other half will get additional help from Greater Change, whose support workers will discuss their financial problems then pay for items such as rent deposits, outstanding debts, work equipment, white goods, furniture or new clothes. They do not make direct transfers to avoid benefits being stopped due to a cash influx.
Professor Michael Sanders, who runs KCL’s experimental government unit, said: “What we’re trying to understand is the boundary conditions for cash transfers. When does it work? For whom does it work? What are the amounts you need to give people in order to make it work?”
One of the first cash transfer schemes was in Mexico in 1997 and since then they have been used around the world. But most evidence is from low and middle-income countries, and there has been opposition from politicians and the public, who often believe people will spend the money unwisely. Last year researchers in Canada found that giving CA$7,500 (£4,285) to 50 homeless people in Vancouver was more effective than spending money housing them in shelters, and saved around CA$777 (£443) per person.
It pretty much always helps in the long run, though, and the argument is that a couple people might misuse the funds and so we shouldn’t run the program then I have some blunt force trauma I’d love to send your way(I hope that wasn’t your argument but since it doesn’t really add to the conversation in any other way I’m not sure what you were getting at).
Besides, look at Rat Park to see why people even turn to drugs so often anyway. They’re bored and left without the resources to live fulfilling lives and they turn to the substances that take away their pain. Just pay them, and keep the shitty puritan morality out of it. They’re in a place that’s pretty much as low as one can get, I’m gunna give ‘em some breathing room to make mistakes.
And if we’re so worried about people misusing government-given funds then I’ve got a long list of rich “proper” folk who’d I’d happily string up by their toenails and leave to hang in the hot sun if we’re trying to get all horny for punishment.