Four top LA academics want to give the city's homeless population $1,000 a ... trends now
Four prominent academics in Los Angeles said a monthly payment of $1,000 with no strings attached could save the city from the rampant homeless crisis.
Thousands of homeless people in LA could secure housing in boarding homes and shared apartments if they were provided with monthly payments ranging from $750 to $1,000, according to the proposal.
Citing multiple 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 Grants to Reduce Homelessness in Los Angeles.
But the authors, Gary Blasi, Benjamin F. Henwood, Sam Tsemberis and Dan Flaming, did not say how the grants should be funded or who are eligible for the payment.
They wrote: 'If properly implemented, it could help move tens of thousands of currently homeless Angelenos into housing at a far lower cost per person than our current system.'
Four prominent academics in Los Angeles said a monthly payment of $1,000 with no strings attached could save the city from the rampant homeless crisis
Citing multiple 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 Grants to Reduce Homelessness in Los Angeles. Pictured: authors Benjamin Henwood (left) and Sam Tsemberis (right)
But the authors did not say how the grants should be funded or who are eligible for the payment. Pictured: authors Daniel Flaming (left) and Gary Blasi (right)
'The idea that to give poor people money is controversial is just strange to me,' said co-author Henwood in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
'Of course that 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 street, definitely the fastest way to do that is money,' lead author Blasi, a professor emeritus in the UCLA School of Law, told the Times.
Blasi believes the current complex system has been built up 'primarily to help people with serious disabilities,' which proves ineffective to reduce homeless people on the street.
The authors argued that it's a lengthy and expensive process to rely on housing navigators to help unhoused people under the current system.
'The truth is, we cannot afford not to do better than the current system, which spends a huge amount of money to house a small fraction of those in need,' they wrote.
'Providing interim housing during this process can be
