The place here is not necessarily free, the rent is 30% of your income. Some of them have no income so it is free for them, but there are others who receive some form of income. No functional person would choose to join the ranks of the homeless just to save money.
Oh hell no on the newspaper idea. have you ever tried to research them when that was done poorly.
30% of zero is zero.
These programs make more sense with the advent of Obama Care. More people will be using medicaid with no source of income.
I was actually going more for Titles, marriage records, and such. Paper records in drawers and the like. But I suppose if you wanted to curate all of the news papers, you could.
As for being done properly, that wouldn’t be very hard to monitor as long as it’s rote for those that don’t care and review ability is given to those that do.
The people who are “one paycheck from being able to rent” aren’t the scary ones, they’re the invisible ones.
No, the programme being discussed is the Housing First programme and it is specific to the chronically/long-term homeless. Cite.
Malcolm Gladwell’s article Million Dollar Murray - already mentioned in this thread - discusses the two broad types of homelessness. A minority of homeless people exemplify and inform the stereotypes discussed in this thread: they have mental health problems, are often addicts, and have serious behavioural problems. Although they represent a minority, they seem to dominate the discussion. Rightly so, as their problems are harder to solve and they cost the system bucketloads. And, for reasons that should be obvious, they aren’t always helped by soup kitchens, shelters that require abstinence, etc etc.
However, rigorous research has demonstrated that Housing First can help this group. HF offers independent housing, alongside treatment (but treatment is not obligatory and housing is not dependent on treatment compliance). The most promising evidence demonstrates that they can actually retain independent housing, against all assumptions. Housing First also shows lower rates of incarceration and emergency-room hospitalisation, which means it’s cost effective. See this piece of research, particularly pp.8-9 (PDF).
A study which replicated Housing First in London was also successful - bearing in mind this is one of the most expensive cities in the world for housing. The study showed retention in housing for a number of the sample group: all of which had previously gone in and out of hostels and the streets. It also showed a reduction in alcohol use and criminal behaviour. See this source, p.42 (PDF).
Thisis a good introduction to Housing First. A quote from the page shows that you can’t attribute good results to ‘cherry picking’ - HF has been proven effective in RCTs:
Who designs, administers and penalizes the 1/2% Program? The work required for that would be tremendous, and then we’re worse off - we bought the apartment for them, then we dump millions into administering to them, all to get what? If minimum wage is $8 a hour, which is likely where these people would end up if they get a job, then we would get four cents an hour. If we staffed the 1/2% program with other people making minimum wage (unlikely), then we would need 200 people who signed away their four cents to pay for one staffer.
That would be really stupid. And most of the homeless that the free housing program is designed for are the hardcore unemployable. So it far more of a waste than to just get them into a damn room.
I get it - I hate it too. I am no hippie, and it’s very hard to see the value in a program like this. But, if we’ve decided we can’t just let these people die, we have to be smart about it. They are a sink of resources either way, and they’re never going to be net contributors. So this is an rough solution - warehouse them so they don’t fuck it up for the rest of us, which costs much less than having them sleep under bridges, get deathly ill six times a year, and end up using emergency services that taxpayers pay for.
Gee I dunno, who designs, administers and penalizes you with taxes?
Dd you miss the rest of my comment? I’d be curious what you think of the rest of it.