Can a universal basic income help address homelessness?
newsroom.unsw.edu.au
newsroom.unsw.edu.au
No longer you'll hear employers say "if you don't like it here, go somewhere else", when the 'else' part is another abusive company like that, going homeless or committing suicide. Under UBI the option of laying flat and not dying is a valid option. As a result, either a lot of people go laying flat, or working conditions improve, because smart employers will want to attract this huge dormant working force.
The number one thing UBI doesn't handle well is rent inflation. You hand out $1000 dollars per person monthly, expect rents to go up by about $1000 monthly as landlords realise there is all this extra disposable income in peoples' hand right now.
However, this is just an exaggerated effect of monopolies sucking out all aggregate disposable income out of economy that is already happening. Monopolies by definition don't have price down pressures, so they always price expand to capture anything people might have extra. Since landlording is the biggest aggregate monopoly in the world, landlords capture any disposable workers' income. No matter if they get a raise from their boss, the landlord always takes it away.
The only solution is an antimonopoly measure that actually works. Anti-trust bureaus always end up corrupt and can't be relied on. Systematic rule based antimonopoly taxes seem to be the only current viable option. One such being the famous land value tax (LVT), which captures extra pricing on rents - enabling workers to actually keep their hardly earned income raises.
Since UBI won't work without curbing monopoly price expansion, and landlords' rents are the biggest aggregate monopoly out there, there won't be any UBI without LVT.
If UBI happens and looks secure, fewer people will be willing to spend $3500 a month for rent in San Francisco and move to places like Springfield MO where rent is $500 a month.
The point with LVT and UBI is that you need LVT to make UBI not blow up. But once you have LVT in place you'd realise there is actually no need for UBI, because the original underlying problem - worker's disposable income being sucked away by monopolies - is suddenly gone. Under LVT the government sucks away the money from landlords, not landlords sucking it away from workers. The government can then decide to give it back to people (originally called a citizens' dividend) or reinvest into infrastructure.
Your argument makes no sense, regardless wherever the proposed solution would work
In many countries you know you can buy property?
Finland has had substantial success with the Housing First model:
Housing First does not work for the mentally ill, drug addicted, or other causes of homelessness
Neither one of this is what most people think of when it is stated "drug addicted and mentally ill"
alcoholism and suicide are strongly correlated with depression, a mental illness for sure but we as a society has largely separated depression off on to a separate category as it is wide (and over) diagnosed condition
Similarly alcoholism while a drug is often referred to as alcoholism not drug addiction
So in the context of Homelessness in the US mental illness would be referencing things like BiPolar Disorder,schefrania, and other more pronounced and outwardly presenting disorders. Drug Addiction would be Heroin, Crack, etc.
All of which present anti-social and often violent manifestations far different than depression
It works. It solves their homelessness then there are other measures for other problems. And not all drug addicted or mentally ill people are homeless.
It simply does not work as universal idea. People need to feel safe in their homes.
This claim seems a bit far-fetched - "non-economically homeless" probably would be simpler to help with their underlying issues if they didn't live on the streets.
Do you have anything to back your claim up?
Sure, but they need treatment facilities, not an apartment.
Housing First policies is not creating a Mental Health Center to treat people with serious conditions. It is either building standard new housing that is gifted to the homeless, or finding existing housing to provide. Which for the economically homeless there are already many many government programs to provide that the problem is they all have HUGE waitlists as there is a housing shortage.
This is why the economically homeless in the US is the most temporary, and many of the economically homeless are simply waiting for a unit to open up on one of the many government programs that provide housing units.
Putting a severely drug addicted or mentally ill person in such housing will not only do a disservice to them as they are still not getting help, and they likely will not stay in the unit anyway. It places the other residents in danger as well
And what do you mean by non-homogeneous? It is not like all Finnish people is the same, they are not clones.
92% of the population of Finland are ethnically homogeneous. That manifests as shared values, goals, and choices.
You won't have that in the United States by breaking her up into 72 countries.
Frankly, such a suggestion is foolish on its face.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...
I don't believe it is. We can give a counter example of Salt Lake City, Utah which this npr report claims to have reduced homelessness substantially with the same model. I admit that they do have a different philosophy but maybe the west coast philosophies on homelessness aren't really working out. Utah is culturally different but maybe not so different that they can't learn from them.
https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni...
All the west has similar demographics (age, gender, ...) . So, what do you mean by this?
Small sample. Small country. Far different social and governmental norms. It might not translate here. But it's not going to hurt to try either. Our options, sadly, seem to be limited.
If anything, Finland is a lesson in how a disparate group of people in the poorest corner of Europe can come together, say "Looks like we're a country now, how do we want to do this thing?" and succeed.
It's one of the most ethnically and culturally homogeneous countries on the planet at >90% Finnish.
I said it is the primary vehicle by which they are transmitted for all of human history, which is a fact.
Where did Nazi culture and values come from?
Perhaps I read this wrong, what is a vehicle for whether a policy is successful or a failure?
EDIT: I just realized what you meant. Ethical values are transmitted through culture but whether they are followed isn't.
The degree of homogeneity of culture, values, and ethics are a major factor in policy success or failure.
Therefore, an ethnically homogeneous area is much more likely to have homogeneous culture, values, and ethics and policies that reflect those things.
Sometimes, that homogeneity entails characteristics that lead to a generous, happy, high trust, flourishing society, like Finland. Sometimes it leads to Nazi Germany.
So given that and the fact that there are other factors that could effect trust, happiness, and success doesn't that basically tell you it isn't a meaningful factoe?
You said "Different people, values, principles, ethics, concerns; all of which echo in life choices"
Isn't crime mostly connected to economic situations? Doesn't Finland have more social services than the US. Doesn't UBI help people who might otherwise turn to crime
If someone is raped and has to live with that mental scar is that a loss?
You're assuming taxes on income are the only way to lose money. We all pay for the effects of crime. We pay for the police, we pay higher health insurance for others injuries, etc
Considering Finland is the highest ranked country for happiness, has a low crime rate, social nets, and universal health care I think copying them is a smart move even to try it.
The main problem is the traitor evangelicals who wield power here while they use the government for money and contributing little the economy. They're are filth that we need to clean up first before we can improve this country
You didn't answer the question.
The majority decided that paying higher taxes is worth the benefits.
Why did they decide that and why do they trust the receipts of those benefits to use them appropriately?
Like it or not, the overwhelming majority of human history and culture is ethnocentric. It should not be a surprise that the ethnic values, ethics, and ways of living continue to be the dominant force in an area that has remained the same demographically for centuries.
That's not to say the culture, values, and ethics are inextricably bound to the ethnicity, but it is without a doubt a vehicle for sustainment and major factor in policy success or failure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish-speaking_population_...
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/poverty-homelessness-and...
Mental health issues can also be alleviated with money. Regardless of what issues a person is facing, they will function better if they don't have to cope with the stress of poverty.
One of the biggest strengths of UBI is that it eliminates the beurocracy and waste associated with determining who "deserves" assistance. The dominant model in the US is expecting homeless people with drug problems to solve both their addiction and homelessness at the same time by themselves before they are deemed worthy of being helped, which needless to say is barely assistance at all. Having a gaurenteed income stream would make it easier to gain a foothold.
I propose it's highly unlikely that a person who is living on streets is doing so simply because they are lazy.
Imagine freezing in the winter or sweating in the summer. How about worrying where you'll find food, staying safe from unstable people or maybe even well off people who attack/kill the homeless. Your claim is that this is a choice out of a laziness and not a mental disorder and/or an inability to get a job due to reasons outside of their control.
What's also interesting is that if you claim it's their choice then not helping doesn't make you look bad.
This means that, if someone does become homeless in one of those communities, it is brief and one-time. The communities were able to achieve this by providing adequate shelters and housing assistance both before and after people lose their homes. They also used person-by-person outreach to make sure they found everyone who was homeless and got them housing.
To me, it seems like that doesn't line up with the idea that some people are predisposed to chronic homelessness/resistant to getting housing.
https://www.cdss.ca.gov/inforesources/guaranteed-basic-incom...
This article is from July[2022] and it has a more global review of UBI type programs that have been tried in the past or are currently in progress(Kenya for example).
https://www.moneycrashers.com/pros-and-cons-universal-basic-...
It is the government policies which cause homelessness.
X = number of homes constructed in 2022.
Y = number of new people in country in 2022.
You have to increase X by more than Y. If you want to bring 500,000 new people to the country, there has to be that much more construction. But new building is hard as ever. Carbon tax adds huge cost to concrete. Concrete plants can't operate anymore, imported concrete is exempt. Not to mention construction worker shortage; https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/subjects-start/labour_/labour-s...
You can't even build more even if government wasn't in the way. Nobody wants to do the work. Therefore we have a consequence of homelessness increasing.
What will UBI do? UBI won't build more homes. Nobody going to receive a cheque for $2000/year and say, "I'm going to go work in the cold, building homes." No it's the opposite, those cold construction workers can stop wearing their reflective clothing. Maybe take this $2000 to start a new business. You'll have less homes being built the next year. Homelessness will increase.
Small-scale targetted projects have been shown to work probably because of the care involved, the targetted group of people and perhaps a society where people want to not be a burden.
However, if you have a smaller homelss population with massive mental-health problems, lack of money for high quality oversight and predatory people, you could equally end up with more drugs deaths but less people on the street.
In the UK, there are a significant number of people labelled as homeless who have accomodation and sometimes benefits but lacking the difficult support teams required to help the vulnerable or distressed to stay away from people who will happily sell them alcohol or drugs.
Yet, UBI would drive prices up more, as its simple monetary creation. Rising costs are part of the problem, let's not use UBI to make them rise faster.
(Unless of course one were to simultaneously destroy the same amount if money as the UBI from someone else's savings. But that amounts to theft---unmasking the real morality of UBI. And I've never heard UBI proponents argue that we should steal from the rich to fund it.)
If you're in the US, medicaid, food stamps... your comment makes no sense if your only complaint is UBI.
I would not say steal because I do not consider taxation to be stealing.
We absolutely should not increase the money suply
So UBI will take money away from the poor and the elderly? Median Social Security is already $15K based on numbers a few years old and will inevitably be higher with inflationary effects 2021-2022.
And that's not including Medicare, which is another huge program that targets the elderly.
In fact, something like 45% of Federal spending is targeted at the retired (who only represent something like 15% of the population).
You can't fund UBI by having it replace other programs without asking people already benefiting from those programs to take gigantic haircuts.
If it where me designing UBI, effectively only people in the bottom 2 quintiles would get to keep 100% of their UBI after tax, and people in the top would get to keep 0% of their UBI after tax.
~260M adults in the U.S. so ~52M in that group; for a cost of $624bn annually. Bear in mind, this is assuming no-one in the third or fourth quintiles get anything, which is much less generous than your proposal, and that $1,000 per month is at the low end of the range often proposed.
And let's say we're going to fund that by taxing the top 25% of tax payers. In 2019, last year with good data, the top 25% paid about $1.4tn of income taxes. So basically income taxes would have to increase by ~50% for that group.
[0] Citizens (possibly permanent residents) over 18 (or 16?) who actually reside in the country.
Pick a small town and deploy UBI, and see what happens.
- A shipping container home on a dedicated facility with access to electricity, heating, water and the internet.
- Mental health counselling on site.
- Fitness facilities on site using cheap but effective equipment such as sandbags, sand kettlebells and weighted rucksacks. Fitness classes and organised rucks should be scheduled throughout the day for anyone to join if they wish.
- Basic generic clothing if needed plus one generic formal outfit if needed for job interviews.
- A free educational course.
- A laptop, for educational courses and for basic entertainment.
- A mobile phone.
- A 50cc moped or electric bicycle to allow wider access to job opportunities.
- Basic food: a Soylent like shake for breakfast, a plant based lunch and communal dinners.
- A free bank account and debit card with no overdraft available.
Throwing money at the problem is not going to fix it. In order to help these people rebuild financially, we need to help them heal mentally and physically then give them both the skills and means (transport, clothes) they need to find employment. They need to be allowed to heal and move at their own pace. You can try to nudge them in the right direction but ultimately it is their choice. If some of them just want to see out the rest of their days at the facility you have to be ok with that. I believe the majority will want to heal, gain skills, find employment, save up and transition back into the economy.
If the rent of an apartment is $500, and the government gives a person a UBI of $500, then it is logical and legal for that apartment to now rent for $1,000. What benefit has been gained? Zero. What if the apartment then went to $1,500? The UBI is still useless.
Cars, food, household goods, clothing, you name it, will see an increase in price to account for the additional income in the market. We're back to square one and wasted a tremendous amount of money in the process, and destabilized the economy.
A UBI is a horrible idea.
If the rent of an apartment is $500, and the government doesn't give a UBI, then it is logical and legal for that apartment to now rent for $1,000.
Obviously landlords always can and want to raise rents, but market competition keeps them from raising prices arbitrarily. Rents would increase, but not by the full value of the grant, unless you have some pretty funny ideas about the inelasticities involved.
What would happen is an aggregate shift in consumption and investments away from luxuries to necessities, as richer people have money that would compete for luxuries taxed and redirected toward poorer people who would then spend it on necessities they were forgoing for financial reasons. More money chasing inferior goods, less money chasing superior goods.
(This is all assuming that the new spending is fiscally neutral i.e. funded by taxes.)
From where does that number come? Will not the increased productivity of the population make up for any possible cost?
It seems that the USA has found a lot of trillions from to subsidize from oil and tech companies to wage war. Why are that costs more important than a real investment in the citizens of the USA?
Almost every cash transfer program ever studied showed it a work disincentive, not a productivity boost. Some study results compilation: https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2019/basic_income_reduces...
The US has 258 million adults. If you give everyone $1000 a month that's $3.1 trillion a year.
> wage war
The whole budget for the department of defense is about $700 billion a year.
> Will not the increased productivity of the population make up for any possible cost?
I don't know, but it doesn't seem like a given that UBI would increase productivity to that extent (or that it increases productivity at all).
So unless you propose to reduce funding for the poor or elderly, where exactly does this get funded from?
Or to invert it given the currents system: every man, woman, and child is currently taxed $1k/month to fund existing social service liabilities that are concentrated to a fraction of the population. How do you expand that benefit _and_ include all people as recipients without generating new revenue (e.g. raising taxes).
it should be an either or... not an also add
We either have UBI, or we have social welfare. Pick 1
Meanwhile, the vast majority of people receiving income (the universal part), would have a portion of their income previously provided by wages replaced with money that used to be used for social services for those that either needed them (based on the current definition of need) or had “paid in” with the expectation of income at old age. Who is benefiting from this?
I never said I was for either.. I was saying society needs to pick 1 or other the other not both.
Your average, averagely healthy non-disabled person shouldn't need or receive or need more than UBI. There are always some that need extra support, but they are absolute minority.
Unless UBI proposes to take funding away from those who are already poor or already retired then where exactly is the money coming from?
The CA Housing crisis, and extreme pricing inflation are all a direct result of government restrictions on new housing construction, and government regulations that make new housing more expensive to create
yes they do... all the time
The cheery pick data, or just make up their own data to fit the narrative they want
>> government policies informed by economists following the rules of "basic economy"
You have proof of this?
The polices in CA on housing are not economic, they are a 3 legged combo of
1. Wealth protection. people like it when the house they own goes up in value 15% YoY . and dislike it if it drops. Even if over 5 years a person home went up 10% every year, then 1 year dropped 3%, they would be EXTREMELY pissed about the 3% and vote out the government that caused it. Thus a heavy incentive to ensure housing ALWAYS increases in cost
2. Environmentalism gone extreme.. Every housing plot has some endangered beetle that just must be saved
3. NIMBY preventing higher density housing, and creating minimum house sizes that are basically McMansions
None of which are economic or economists recommended
You're asking if I have proof that governments are assisted by teams of experts? Just learn how modern administration works.
> The polices in CA on housing are not economic, they are a 3 legged combo of
The housing issue exists in pretty much every civilized country except those that invested heavily in public housing. It would be surreal if most governments of the G20 didn't know the rules of basic economy.
Here is in the Midwest we have no Housing Crisis, and very few homeless... We also do not have 50+ years of Heavy handed Government regulations...