Four prominent Los Angeles academics say a monthly payment of $1,000 with no strings attached could save the city from the widespread homeless crisis.
Thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles could get housing in shared boarding houses and apartments if they received monthly payments ranging from $750 to $1,000, according to the proposal.
Citing several pilot studies conducted across the country, the four authors highlighted the effectiveness of basic income in a draft of their policy brief titled Basic Income Subsidies to Reduce Homelessness in Los Angeles.
But the authors, Gary Blasi, Benjamin F. Henwood, Sam Tsemberis and Dan Flaming, did not specify how the grants should be funded or who was eligible for payment.
They wrote: “If implemented properly, it could help move tens of thousands of currently homeless Angelenos into housing at a much lower per person cost than our current system. »
Four prominent Los Angeles academics say a monthly payment of $1,000 with no strings attached could save the city from the widespread homeless crisis.
Citing several pilot studies conducted across the country, the four authors highlighted the effectiveness of basic income in a draft of their policy brief titled Basic Income Subsidies to Reduce Homelessness in Los Angeles. Pictured: Authors Benjamin Henwood (left) and Sam Tsemberis (right)
But the authors did not specify how the grants should be funded or who was eligible for payment. Pictured: Authors Daniel Flaming (left) and Gary Blasi (right)
“The idea that giving money to poor people is controversial just seems strange to me,” co-author Henwood said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
“Of course it will help,” said the director of the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research at the USC School of Social Work.
“If the idea is to reduce the number of people on the streets, the quickest way to do that is money,” lead author Blasi, a professor emeritus at the University of California Law School, told the Times. ‘UCLA.
Blasi believes the current complex system was built “primarily to help people with severe disabilities,” which is ineffective in reducing the number of homeless people on the streets.
The authors argued that relying on housing navigators to help unhoused people under the current system is a time-consuming and expensive process.
“The truth is that we cannot afford not to do better than the current system, which spends enormous sums to house a small fraction of those who need it,” they write.
“Providing interim housing during this process can be very costly, as can increasing the supply of housing,” they added.
The authors argued that relying on housing navigators to help unhoused people under the current system is a time-consuming and expensive process. Pictured: A homeless person sleeps under a blanket on a sidewalk in Skid Row.
Tsemberis also emphasized that basic housing assistance is not intended for all homeless people on the streets, as he said: “It is for the group that has more resources internally, a history of work, who is not struggling with mental illness or addiction.”
Los Angeles is currently home to more than 46,000 unhoused people, a 10 percent increase from the previous year, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
Instead, scholars have suggested another source of affordable housing: “informal housing.”
“Informal housing, once a subject of study only in developing countries, means housing that does not conform to formal housing market standards,” they write.
“This includes shared housing, housing that does not meet all code requirements, rented rooms in single-family homes.”
“There is already a large informal rental market throughout California,” said co-author Tsemberis, a clinical community psychologist at the UCLA School of Psychiatry.
“People are renting single-family homes. They have two or three beds in each of the rooms and charge $400 to $500 a month for sleeping.
Tsemberis also emphasized that basic housing assistance is not intended for all homeless people on the streets.
“It’s for the group that has more internal resources, work history and is not struggling with mental illness or addiction,” he said.
Bass instead urged the “luckier” to help address the crisis through the LA4LA program, his latest homelessness prevention initiative.
Homelessness in downtown Los Angeles in particular has exploded since the pandemic, with more than 10,000 additional unhoused people on the streets since 2019.
Los Angeles is currently home to more than 46,000 unhoused people, a 10 percent increase from the previous year, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
Homelessness in downtown Los Angeles in particular has exploded since the pandemic, with more than 10,000 additional unhoused people on the streets since 2019.
Since 2015, the number of homeless people in the city has increased by 70 percent. The services of nonprofits like Midnights Mission have been stretched to the limits of their resources.
The Mission serves three meals a day to people living on the streets and provides services such as temporary housing, a hair salon and a women’s crisis center.
In just three years, the number of homeless women in Los Angeles has increased by 55 percent, according to the organization. More than 90 percent of these women have experienced physical or sexual assault.
Los Angeles County has a budget of $609.7 million to address homelessness in 2023-24, $61.8 million more than the previous year.
The budget aims to reduce encampments, increase temporary and permanent housing placements, and increase mental health and substance use disorder services for people experiencing homelessness.
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