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.
It might sound backwards but for a lot of people, myself included, not having a job will actually diminish motivation.
The frustration of applying for jobs and going for interviews with no response for months on end only adds to the stress of not having any money which adds up to a “what’s the fucking point?” train of thought, which hasn’t resulted in homelessness for me, but I could see how it would for other people.