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Very interesting homelessness study

Grandpappy said:
It's called "common sense" in the real world.

Fill in the blank:
If you give a drug addict money, they'll buy _______with it.

This is an easy one.
Click to expand...


Tell that to the conservatives in Utah.

Their solution to homeless people, give them a home.

Utah's Strategy for the Homeless: Give Them Homes

Utah is battling homelessness by giving the needy shelter first and then aiding them with job placement, and it’s working.
www.nbcnews.com
 
Grandpappy said:
It's called "common sense" in the real world.

Fill in the blank:
If you give a drug addict money, they'll buy _______with it.

This is an easy one.
Click to expand...
Are all homeless drug addicts? Are among them actual veterans who happen to be down on their luck?
How about women who had to run from their abusive husband or who lost their job because the kid got sick too often?
 
Lovebug said:
Why is this cause for a snarky remark? Why go there? Have we become so callous that everything, even human beings personal misery, causes us to thump our chest because, man, that was so funny?
Click to expand...
Lovebug meet Grandpappy.
 
Half of our society's issues could be solved if people realized that cash transfers are effective policy.

And likely more effective than whatever else you want to spend on the government to mitigate social ills, like more thug-ass racist cops or border walls.

But nope, "socialism."
 
Grandpappy said:
"Approximately 38% of all homeless people abuse alcohol. About 26% of all homeless people abuse drugs. Close to two-thirds of homeless veterans suffer from alcohol or drug abuse. Homeless people are nine times more likely to die from an opioid overdose than the general population."
Click to expand...
So 26% is enough for you to make the sweeping generalization that homeless people will blow their stipend on drugs? Even though the study in the OP refutes your ignorance? You truly are a model conservative.
 
Why does the homeless pick the cities with the highest cost of living? If it was really about money to make the rent then they would be in Midwest America living in towns with low cost of living. Truth is they're in liberal coastal cities with superior homeless support and benefits. Giving them even more isn't going to get rid of them....Well Duh!!!
 
Grandpappy said:
It's called "common sense" in the real world.

Fill in the blank:
If you give a drug addict money, they'll buy _______with it.

This is an easy one.
Click to expand...
If you give a drug addict drugs, he'll stop stealing _____.
 
Grandpappy said:
"Approximately 38% of all homeless people abuse alcohol. About 26% of all homeless people abuse drugs. Close to two-thirds of homeless veterans suffer from alcohol or drug abuse. Homeless people are nine times more likely to die from an opioid overdose than the general population."
Click to expand...
Do you think that, if we had helped them instead of making empty promises and shoved the can down the road, they might not be drug dependent and home/hopeless?
What's worse than not getting help when they need it most is that some judgmental know-it-alls think they should say anything about their lot in life.
We have no idea what got them to where they are. I don't know how to help them but perhaps if all of us tried and put our heads together we could come up with something that betters their lives. What I refuse is looking down my nose at anyone who doesn't fit society's norms.
I know there always were and always will be the snobs vs the unwashed. I just don't want to be part of condemning anyone who, with a little help, might just turn their lives around. If there is a chance, why not?
I think most of us share a common goal, food, water, shelter, clothing and most of all dignity. Why deny that?
Yes, some are past help, perhaps, but how do we know unless we try?
 
Grandpappy said:
"Approximately 38% of all homeless people abuse alcohol. About 26% of all homeless people abuse drugs. Close to two-thirds of homeless veterans suffer from alcohol or drug abuse. Homeless people are nine times more likely to die from an opioid overdose than the general population."
Click to expand...
So, since you are dismissing homeless people, characterizing them as hopeless drug addicts and denying them government assistance you are essentially saying you are okay with two-thirds of homeless veterans suffering from alcohol or drug abuse? People who protected our country, now suffer from PTSD and are simply thrown away rather than counseled. I would assume you are also against government funds used to integrate them back into society. Nice!(n)
 
dseag2 said:
So, since you are dismissing homeless people, characterizing them as hopeless drug addicts and denying them government assistance you are essentially saying you are okay with two-thirds of homeless veterans suffering from alcohol or drug abuse? People who protected our country, now suffer from PTSD and are simply thrown away rather than counseled. I would assume you are also against government funds used to integrate them back into society. Nice!(n)
Click to expand...
We should have a conversation on what entails "giving up on people". The way I see it you're given up on people by choosing to simply enabling and placate them rather than hold them accountable for themselves. On the surface we're a wealthy nation so we can afford to give people drugs, booze, food, housing or whatever they want. But the reality is we're actually slowly killing them by taking away what little motivation they have to live a normal productive life. IMHO Religion is the best chance these people have. They have centuries of experience on helping similar people and they actually acknowledge and understand human frailties.
 
StillBallin75 said:
Half of our society's issues could be solved if people realized that cash transfers are effective policy.

And likely more effective than whatever else you want to spend on the government to mitigate social ills, like more thug-ass racist cops or border walls.

But nope, "socialism."
Click to expand...
can't subscribe to throwing money at a problem and expecting desirable outcomes ... especially if the recipients have demonstrated an inability to distinguish wants from needs
 
Study:

A core cause of homelessness is a lack of money

Next, they eliminate people from the study that presumably have a "lack of money":

Our preregistered screening criteria were.... homeless for less than 2 y .... nonsevere levels of substance use

They cherry-pick those homeless that would be the most responsive to any kind of rehabiiliation or cash infusion. Next comes the "tweet" or whatever that touts the results:

generating cost savings of $8277 (per person, which doesn't include the drug users or the long term homeless)

You see, if you give me $7500 and I give you $8277, that's a cost savings to you of $8277. This is American math.

What they did here was save 9.4% for the top 15% of homeless people (115 out of a pool of 732). The bottom 85% weren't helped in the slightest, even though they "lacked money".
 
Lovebug said:
Are all homeless drug addicts? Are among them actual veterans who happen to be down on their luck?
How about women who had to run from their abusive husband or who lost their job because the kid got sick too often?
Click to expand...
Based on my experiences with homeless or 'home challenged' people,which is extensive, it's a mixed bag of all the above. Add to that immigrants from Central America who can't speak English. Affordable housing for low income people is in very short supply and very high demand. As an avowed free market capitalist, I would concede that the miracle of the free market- usually stunningly effective for solving problems- does not work well here. "big Gov't fixes everything' has limited effectiveness as well.
So where are we? I really wish I had an answer for that , but I don't.
 
dmpi said:
Why does the homeless pick the cities with the highest cost of living? If it was really about money to make the rent then they would be in Midwest America living in towns with low cost of living. Truth is they're in liberal coastal cities with superior homeless support and benefits. Giving them even more isn't going to get rid of them....Well Duh!!!
Click to expand...
They are where the weather is livable year round. AND... they are where the money is.
 
dmpi said:
We should have a conversation on what entails "giving up on people". The way I see it you're given up on people by choosing to simply enabling and placate them rather than hold them accountable for themselves. On the surface we're a wealthy nation so we can afford to give people drugs, booze, food, housing or whatever they want. But the reality is we're actually slowly killing them by taking away what little motivation they have to live a normal productive life. IMHO Religion is the best chance these people have. They have centuries of experience on helping similar people and they actually acknowledge and understand human frailties.
Click to expand...
Religion? :LOL:

Religion is all around. And yet here we are with this problem. So far you are offering to ignore the issue and blame them for not being religious. Offer an actual solution. Or is it that you want government to pick them up and drive them to religious institutions to be recruited into the faith?
 
j brown's body said:
The op points out the stupidity of this statement, as giving them money saves money.
Click to expand...

Well no, the OP reference makes the dubious claim that giving the homeless money "makes the taxpayer rich".

Let's logically test your assertion: If you give a homeless person $7500 and do you get rich? :unsure:

But this type of first order analysis will generally miss the big picture. It's the same kind of short sighted statistical analysis that leads to policies that create events like the California homeless crisis.

The first issue is that for every 1 homeless person there are numerous people who are near homelessness, but getting by without much assistance.

If you are looking at this as a way to "make tax payers rich" then you would have to account for the draw of easy money on the number of people applying for the benefit under the new program who don't receive benefits already.

Moreover, I'd have to call into question the "savings", or what those savings really mean. For most benefits to the low and zero-income homeless, that $7500 just makes them ineligible (in the US anyway). So yeah, you give people money and they are ineligible for benefits... but...

The real issues with the study is the limited scope of allowed subjects that makes it difficult to implement in the real world. For instance, the selection process:

1694174128851.png

So essentially they were looking for newly homeless people without severe mental issues or drug abuse issues. So sure, that very narrow group, I'd argue, should be treated very differently than the mentally ill and the drug addicted homeless... I could have saved whoever funded this study a lot of money. The problem is you can't implement a narrow program like that in the US that denies people benefits based on disabilities... so you would have to give the benefit to all homeless, a group that the test designers themselves admit might be harmed by receiving a large sum of cash.

Also interesting is the demographics of the 115 participants (a mere 16% of the starting sample made it through screening):
(
1694174408855.png

So the control group had: Lower starting income, same basic employment rate, less willingness to take a job, and were markedly worse at money management (control spent 8.5% more than they made annually versus the test group who spent 24% less than they made)

That last statistic is so lopsided that it pretty much invalidates the whole study. That is a 33% swing is money management skills between control and test... it's so utterly lopsided that it kind of stinks of an intentionally corrupted selection process.

So even if it was just an accidental deviation, all they have shown is that a very narrow group of homeless who are not mentally ill, not substance abusers and are good with managing money... manage money better than those who aren't good at managing money.

At best this study falls into the "Farts Smell" classification of studies...
 
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poweRob said:
Religion? :LOL:

Religion is all around. And yet here we are with this problem. So far you are offering to ignore the issue and blame them for not being religious. Offer an actual solution. Or is it that you want government to pick them up and drive them to religious institutions to be recruited into the faith?
Click to expand...
I had to laugh at his comment. Religion is free and available any time, any place. And so far its track record in solving homelessness is abysmal. If religion was so great a fixing this then why is the homeless rate increasing? Again I simply go back to my post #16 knowing it may be inflammatory but it's pretty damn true.
 
dmpi said:
We should have a conversation on what entails "giving up on people". The way I see it you're given up on people by choosing to simply enabling and placate them rather than hold them accountable for themselves. On the surface we're a wealthy nation so we can afford to give people drugs, booze, food, housing or whatever they want. But the reality is we're actually slowly killing them by taking away what little motivation they have to live a normal productive life. IMHO Religion is the best chance these people have. They have centuries of experience on helping similar people and they actually acknowledge and understand human frailties.
Click to expand...
So we are to pray away the evil spirits?
 
jmotivator said:
Well no, the OP reference makes the dubious claim that giving the homeless money "makes the taxpayer rich".

Let's logically test your assertion: If you give a homeless person $7500 and do you get rich? :unsure:

But this type of first order analysis will generally miss the big picture. It's the same kind of short sighted statistical analysis that leads to policies that create events like the California homeless crisis.

The first issue is that for every 1 homeless person there are numerous people who are near homelessness, but getting by without much assistance.

If you are looking at this as a way to "make tax payers rich" then you would have to account for the draw of easy money on the number of people applying for the benefit under the new program who don't receive benefits already.

Moreover, I'd have to call into question the "savings", or what those savings really mean. For most benefits to the low and zero-income homeless, that $7500 just makes them ineligible (in the US anyway). So yeah, you give people money and they are ineligible for benefits... but...

The real issues with the study is the limited scope of allowed subjects that makes it difficult to implement in the real world. For instance, the selection process:

View attachment 67466987

So essentially they were looking for newly homeless people without severe mental issues or drug abuse issues. So sure, that very narrow group, I'd argue, should be treated very differently than the mentally ill and the drug addicted homeless... I could have saved whoever funded this study a lot of money. The problem is you can't implement a narrow program like that in the US that denies people benefits based on disabilities... so you would have to give the benefit to all homeless, a group that the test designers themselves admit might be harmed by receiving a large sum of cash.

Also interesting is the demographics of the 115 participants (a mere 16% of the starting sample made it through screening):
(
View attachment 67466988

So the control group had: Lower starting income, same basic employment rate, less willingness to take a job, and were markedly worse at money management (control spent 8.5% more than they made annually versus the test group who spent 24% less than they made)

That last statistic is so lopsided that it pretty much invalidates the whole study. That is a 33% swing is money management skills between control and test... it's so utterly lopsided that it kind of stinks of an intentionally corrupted selection process.

So even if it was just an accidental deviation, all they have shown is that a very narrow group of homeless who are not mentally ill, not substance abusers and are good with managing money... manage money better than those who aren't good at managing money.

At best this study falls into the "Farts Smell" classification of studies...
Click to expand...

More interesting things to be drawn from the selection process:

The Cash Group was:
* 10% more likely to be receiving assistance from the start (more impact on money saved in benefits after receiving cash)
* 16% less likely to have multiple episodes of homelessness. In fact 60% of the control group had been homeless more than once, while only 44% of the test group would say the same. (More likely for first time homeless to get out of homeless long term than repeat homeless)
* The test group had been homeless for 43% longer than the control group (probably doesn't effect outcomes either way, but still is far too disparate to be random)
* The Control Group was 10% less likely to have a government ID (less likely to find employment)

The disparities in favor of positive outcomes for the test group are just weird. It's hard to believe that the study found this multi-variable Goldilocks test group by random chance.
 
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