A Canadian Solution To The Homelessness Epidemic

Imagine this scenario ... a wildly successful tech company goes on a hiring spree, paying new hire salaries well above the city-wide average. These workers drive housing prices higher, making homes unaffordable for others outside the tech industry. The inequity creates a housing crisis and homelessness epidemic. To avoid blame and perhaps try and help, the successful company gives millions to nonprofits. The money has sadly little impact. Frustrated, the company threatens to withhold their economic clout from the city by moving their huge annual conference (and its $50M+ budget) elsewhere if it gets disrupted by the homeless.

This is the real life drama happening now with Salesforce, as founder Marc Benioff threatens to move their huge Dreamforce conference away from San Francisco just as the city struggles with a homeless epidemic and substance abuse problems on the street. It’s easy to think it’s a problem with no solution. Yet a newly released study in Canada demonstrated the effects of giving people experiencing homelessness a cash transfer of $7500 without conditions. A year later, they measured what people spent it on:

“The recipients of the cash transfers did not increase spending on drugs, tobacco, and alcohol, but did increase spending on food, clothes, and rent.”

The implications are clear. If we’re going to make a real difference in the lives of homeless people and create more livable cities for all, more non-obvious thinking and unexpected solutions will be needed. Like giving money directly to people instead of donating millions of dollars in feel-good PR efforts or relying on failed experiments.