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.
$750 a month would be life altering for me.
Life altering like you can buy food and clothes?
and perhaps sleep on an actual bed for the first time in over 20 years.
yes
In my country that’s a very solid salary.
But it’s important to remain in context of the US and the starting point is around 0$, so having only 750$ still makes you very poor.