A study by USC and a San Francisco-based nonprofit has found that a $750 monthly stipend improves the lives of homeless people.

If 100 homeless people were given $750 per month for a year, no questions asked, what would they spend it on?

That question was at the core of a controlled study conducted by a San Francisco-based nonprofit and the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

The results were so promising that the researchers decided to publish results after only six months. The answer: food, 36.6%; housing, 19.5%; transportation, 12.7%; clothing, 11.5%; and healthcare, 6.2%, leaving only 13.6% uncategorized.

Those who got the stipend were less likely to be unsheltered after six months and able to meet more of their basic needs than a control group that got no money, and half as likely as the control group to have an episode of being unsheltered.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20231221131158/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-19/750-a-month-no-questions-asked-improved-the-lives-of-homeless-people

  • @[email protected]
    3•1 year ago

    This was my initial reaction also, but taking a closer look the article doesn’t say anything about UBI. This is not a UBI experiment.

    • MelllvarEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      A fair point. But it looks, swims, and quacks like a UBI experiment.

      • @[email protected]
        1•1 year ago

        Not really, you can’t criticise it for not being like UBI while saying it’s similar to UBI even if it does not purport to be UBI.