In late 2022, Denver embarked on a program aimed at the city’s homeless population.
More than 800 people were chosen to participate in the Denver Basic Income Project. These were folks who were mostly either living on the street, in shelters, in their cars or laying their head down at night on a friend’s couch.
All those taking part were broken into three groups: Group A received US$1,000 a month for a year. Group B received US$6,500 the first month and US$500 for the next 11 months. And the control group, Group C, received US$50 a month.
The total cost of the project was US$9.4 million, which was funded by both private and public money, The Denver Post reports.
So, what happened?
By the study’s 10-month check-in point, roughly 45 per cent of the participants across all three groups were living in a place they were renting compared with only eight per cent when the trial began. The number of nights spent in shelters among those in Groups A and B decreased by about 50 per cent. Participants in those two groups also reported an increase in full-time work while those in the control group saw a slight decrease in full-time work.
Only 23 per cent of the 807 people taking part in the project had full-time jobs when it began; at the 10-month mark, the number had increased to 27 per cent.
There were also savings to taxpayers found throughout the course of the experiment. This manifested itself in many different ways: participants spent less time in ambulances, in emergency rooms, and in hospital beds recuperating from illnesses and injuries. They also spent less time in jail and courtrooms, and in drug and alcohol treatment centres. Research indicated that the total savings to taxpayers was somewhere in the neighbourhood of US$589,000.
While that total doesn’t seem like much against the total cost of the program, project organizers prefer to see things slightly differently.
“We’re really excited about the initial foundation that we built,” Mark Donovan, founder and executive director of the Denver Basic Income Foundation, told The Denver Post. “We’re already seeing [recipients’] incomes continue to improve, month to month, and we believe that the second year and even beyond can be even more profoundly transformational.”
Without question, a project such as this one would meet stiff resistance here in Canada. I can hear people equating giving free, no-strings-attached money to homeless people with giving free drugs to addicts. Why would you give cash to people who aren’t working? It only disincentivizes them from seeking employment, many would say. But that’s not what happened. Denver gave people money and the number of people working went up.
Repeat after me: homelessness is not a choice for most people.
I will concede that $1,000 a month is likely not going to be a difference-maker in terms of finding a place to rent in cities such as Vancouver or Toronto. Not if you have to feed yourself on top of it. Or pay for things like cellphones, which have become basic necessities of life and are essential for finding and sustaining employment.
But in some American cities, that amount of money – supplemented with other government programs for low-income individuals – can make a difference. One of the participants in the Denver project, who was in the group that received the US$6,500 payment, used some of it to buy a car that, in turn, helped her find work. Another participant said the funding offered a “leg up” and the means to purchase hygiene items, and pay for some child care, transportation and other bills. Another person also bought a car and enrolled in school.
There are some who would likely be suspicious that program participants would use the free money to buy booze and drugs. However, those surveyed said their alcohol and drug intake did not increase. Nor did it decrease. It stayed about the same for most.
What was supposed to be a 12-month program has already been extended to this September. Project organizers would like to see it continue to run for a couple more years. The belief is, the longer the supports are in place for a person, the greater the likelihood they will be able to dig themselves out of the hole they are in. Most just need a longer runway to find themselves, to find a job, to find that kind of stability that often eludes the homeless.
It seems to me this is a project worth maintaining. It also might be one a country like ours might want to look into. There seems little doubt that lives are being changed for the better.