If someone walked up to him and said “we have an apartment for you. Don’t worry about paperwork. Here’s the key”. Well THAT would do something.
Should definitely happen. Chronic homelessness is another one of those things where there are legitimate reasons it would benefit more from targeted support. It’s not even a cost issue since doing this has been shown to reduce overall related government expense. Still, relative to the total population there are very few people in that situation, and the idea here is to transform how the majority of people are affected by financial pressures and alter the social contract for everyone.
Absolutely. Welfare consistently has over a 100% ROI. We all get richer. Our RICH even get richer. People needing to have someone “lesser” to look down their noses at have led us all to PAY to put people on the streets instead of feeding and sheltering them. We sacrifice so we can make people suffer.
We should be ashamed of ourselves. There’s no real upside to anyone to let people suffer. Bootstraps are nothing but evil.
EDIT: Sorry walked away before finishing. As for the “very few people in that situation”… sure. But the problem is that everyone else in this economic region is in a similar boat. $12,000/yr is just not going to do anything for them.
And it’s great for Mississippi, but there is a correlation between poverty and cost of living. The neediest people are those who live in areas like Boston. The least needy people are in areas like Mississippi. If we’re going to throw around a $4T+ financial welfare initiative, shouldn’t we make sure the neediest Americans aren’t the least helped by it?
And yeah, that’s tough when the financing is in “dollars”. But if the financing is in “foods” or “rent” (like Section 8 in MA, but minus means-testing) then nobody can really complain that someone renting in Mississippi gets fewer dollars of benefit than someone renting in MA. They both get a (for example) decent 2-bedroom apartment fully covered wherever they want to live.
You live in Boston or Manhattan independently on $12,000/yr?
The formal Poverty Line for Boston is $50,000/yr. More if you have dependents
I don’t see how you can claim to live somewhere with $500/mo grocery bills and $2000/mo slum rent prices and think $1000/mo is better than having your rent and groceries covered, especially if you have to opt out of all welfare to get the $1000/mo.
You’re saying, today, you would opt out of all future welfare for $1000/mo? And you live somewhere with a poverty line more than 5x that? Why?!? Most people I know on welfare get more than that already.
Did not realize your meaning was “geographic economic region”, so no that isn’t where I live, my mistake for making assumptions. I don’t know if I can get behind what you’re saying though, since the implication seems to be that everyone could have a no-strings, no restraints right to the basics of life on their own terms and at their own discretion, but that is trumped by the right to be living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and a concentration of funds should be allocated there instead of spread out more and to more people. I get that it sucks to have to move away from the places and people you know, but it doesn’t seem like a good tradeoff to me.
And I also want to respond to
But if the financing is in “foods” or “rent” (like Section 8 in MA, but minus means-testing) then nobody can really complain that someone renting in Mississippi gets fewer dollars of benefit than someone renting in MA
Because there are clear reasons why a person might prefer to live in one place rather than another, and why people being stuck in Mississippi in a housing welfare scheme with some lock in would be getting screwed over compared to people lucky enough to have started off in Boston. And it isn’t really possible with zero lock-in or barrier to entry either, because of the previously mentioned finite nature of housing availability vs demand.
Should definitely happen. Chronic homelessness is another one of those things where there are legitimate reasons it would benefit more from targeted support. It’s not even a cost issue since doing this has been shown to reduce overall related government expense. Still, relative to the total population there are very few people in that situation, and the idea here is to transform how the majority of people are affected by financial pressures and alter the social contract for everyone.
Absolutely. Welfare consistently has over a 100% ROI. We all get richer. Our RICH even get richer. People needing to have someone “lesser” to look down their noses at have led us all to PAY to put people on the streets instead of feeding and sheltering them. We sacrifice so we can make people suffer.
We should be ashamed of ourselves. There’s no real upside to anyone to let people suffer. Bootstraps are nothing but evil.
EDIT: Sorry walked away before finishing. As for the “very few people in that situation”… sure. But the problem is that everyone else in this economic region is in a similar boat. $12,000/yr is just not going to do anything for them.
And it’s great for Mississippi, but there is a correlation between poverty and cost of living. The neediest people are those who live in areas like Boston. The least needy people are in areas like Mississippi. If we’re going to throw around a $4T+ financial welfare initiative, shouldn’t we make sure the neediest Americans aren’t the least helped by it?
And yeah, that’s tough when the financing is in “dollars”. But if the financing is in “foods” or “rent” (like Section 8 in MA, but minus means-testing) then nobody can really complain that someone renting in Mississippi gets fewer dollars of benefit than someone renting in MA. They both get a (for example) decent 2-bedroom apartment fully covered wherever they want to live.
Well, again, I’ve been there my whole life and can say for sure that’s not true.
You live in Boston or Manhattan independently on $12,000/yr?
The formal Poverty Line for Boston is $50,000/yr. More if you have dependents
I don’t see how you can claim to live somewhere with $500/mo grocery bills and $2000/mo slum rent prices and think $1000/mo is better than having your rent and groceries covered, especially if you have to opt out of all welfare to get the $1000/mo.
You’re saying, today, you would opt out of all future welfare for $1000/mo? And you live somewhere with a poverty line more than 5x that? Why?!? Most people I know on welfare get more than that already.
Did not realize your meaning was “geographic economic region”, so no that isn’t where I live, my mistake for making assumptions. I don’t know if I can get behind what you’re saying though, since the implication seems to be that everyone could have a no-strings, no restraints right to the basics of life on their own terms and at their own discretion, but that is trumped by the right to be living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and a concentration of funds should be allocated there instead of spread out more and to more people. I get that it sucks to have to move away from the places and people you know, but it doesn’t seem like a good tradeoff to me.
And I also want to respond to
Because there are clear reasons why a person might prefer to live in one place rather than another, and why people being stuck in Mississippi in a housing welfare scheme with some lock in would be getting screwed over compared to people lucky enough to have started off in Boston. And it isn’t really possible with zero lock-in or barrier to entry either, because of the previously mentioned finite nature of housing availability vs demand.