Four prominent Los Angeles academics said a no-strings-attached monthly payment of $1,000 could save the city from its rampant homelessness crisis.
Thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles could be housed in boarding houses and shared apartments if they were provided 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 report 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 say how the grants should be funded or who is eligible for payment.
They wrote: “If properly implemented, it could help move tens of thousands of currently homeless Angelenos into housing at a much lower cost per person than our current system.”
Four prominent Los Angeles academics said a no-strings-attached monthly payment of $1,000 could save the city from its rampant homelessness crisis.
Citing multiple pilot studies conducted across the country, the four authors highlighted the effectiveness of basic income in a draft of their policy report titled Basic Income Grants to Reduce Homelessness in Los Angeles. In the photo: authors Benjamin Henwood (left) and Sam Tsemberis (right)
But the authors did not say how the grants should be funded or who is eligible for payment. In the photo: authors Daniel Flaming (left) and Gary Blasi (right)
“The idea that giving money to the poor is controversial is just strange to me,” co-author Henwood said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
“Of course that will help,” said the director of the Center for Research on Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity at the USC School of Social Work.
“If the idea is to reduce the number of people on the street, definitely the quickest way to do it is money,” lead author Blasi, a professor emeritus at the UCLA School of Law, told the Times.
Blasi believes the current complex system has been created “primarily to help people with severe disabilities,” which is ineffective in reducing the number of homeless people on the streets.
The authors argued that it is a long and expensive process to rely on housing navigators to help people experiencing homelessness under the current system.
“The truth is that we cannot afford not to do better than the current system, which spends an enormous amount of money to house a small fraction of those in need,” they wrote.
“Providing temporary housing during this process can be very costly, as can increasing the supply of housing,” they added.
The authors argued that it is a long and expensive process to rely on housing navigators to help people experiencing homelessness under the current system. 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: “This is for the group that has more internal resources, a work history, and is not struggling strongly with a mental illness or addiction.”
Los Angeles is currently home to more than 46,000 homeless people, a 10 percent increase from the previous year, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
Instead, academics suggested a different source of affordable housing: “informal housing.”
“Informal housing, once the subject of study only in developing countries, means housing that does not conform to the standards of the formal housing market,” they wrote.
“This includes shared housing arrangements, housing that does not meet all code requirements, and rented rooms in single-family homes.”
“There is already a vast informal rental market throughout California,” said co-author Tsemberis, a community clinical psychologist at the UCLA School of Psychiatry.
‘People rent single-family homes. They have two or three beds in each room and charge between $400 and $500 a month to sleep.’
Tsemberis also highlighted that basic housing assistance is not intended for all homeless people on the streets.
“This is for the group that has more internal resources, a work history and is not struggling strongly with mental illness or addiction,” he said.
Instead, Bass has urged the “more fortunate” to help tackle the crisis as part of the LA4LA plan, his latest homelessness prevention initiative.
Homelessness in downtown Los Angeles in particular has skyrocketed since the pandemic, with more than 10,000 more homeless people on the streets since 2019.
Los Angeles is currently home to more than 46,000 homeless 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 skyrocketed since the pandemic, with more than 10,000 more homeless people on the streets since 2019.
Since 2015, homelessness in the city has increased 70 percent. The services of nonprofit organizations like Midnights Mission have been stretched to the limits of their resources.
The Mission serves three meals a day to those living on the streets, in addition to providing services such as temporary housing, a barbershop, and a women’s crisis center.
In just three years, the number of homeless women in Los Angeles has increased 55 percent, according to the organization. More than 90 percent of those women have experienced physical or sexual assault.
Los Angeles County has a budget of $609.7 million to address homelessness in 2023-2024, $61.8 million more than the previous year.
The budget goes toward reducing encampments, increasing temporary and permanent housing placements, and increasing mental health and substance use disorder services for people experiencing homelessness.