Thu, 30 Mar 2023 04:40:36 +1100
Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>
<https://reasonstobecheerful.world/vancouver-gave-its-homeless-5800-it-changed-their-lives/>
"“It took me about a week to really sink in that this money was for me,” Ray
recounts. “You know, $7,500 bucks is a fair bit to be giving to someone in my
situation.”
Ray was among 50 people experiencing homelessness in Vancouver, British
Columbia selected in 2018 to receive a lump sum of cash deposited into their
personal bank accounts — no strings attached. The gift (about USD$5,800) was
part of a pilot project, the first of its kind, and the early results are so
impressive that cities across Canada and the U.S. are looking to try it
themselves.
For Ray, everything hit at once. After a 37-year-long career of heavy lifting
in the warehouse and construction industries, his body was failing him. In
2017, he was laid off and had to chase his employer for owed wages. When he
sought re-training, his high school English grade was two percentage points
short of qualifying. And when he didn’t meet the bureaucratic hurdles of
employment insurance, the government cut his payments. Suddenly, Ray couldn’t
make rent.
As a survivor of what’s known as the ‘60s scoop, where an overwhelming number
of Indigenous children were apprehended by the Canadian government and raised
by non-Indigenous families, Ray was used to supporting himself. The loss of
agency was a big blow. “My hands were kind of tied,” says Ray. “I just wanted
to give up, I really did.”
homeless
Ray stayed strong, even managing to honor his 15-plus years of sobriety. From a
local homeless shelter, he continued his fight to go back to school. But even
taking jobs at $100 a day back in warehousing, he just couldn’t get ahead.
Without a fridge to store food or money for a monthly bus pass, Ray was paying
the poverty premium. “By the end of the day, half of that money was gone,” he
says. It was impossible to save enough to get himself back into stable housing.
That’s when Ray was approached by members of the New Leaf Project, run by the
charity Foundations for Social Change (FSC). Through a research partnership
with the University of British Columbia led by Canada’s research chair in
behavioral sustainability, Jiaying Zhao, the pilot was designed as a randomized
control trial to measure the effects that a one-time lump-sum gift had on
people’s lives over the course of a year. Participants were recruited from
local shelters and screened to ensure they were recently homeless and
functional in their daily lives to reduce the risk of potential harm that funds
might bring if they drove people deeper into addiction. Every three months
recipients completed questionnaires and interviews about their spending and
experiences. That data was then compared with a control group."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
"“It took me about a week to really sink in that this money was for me,” Ray
recounts. “You know, $7,500 bucks is a fair bit to be giving to someone in my
situation.”
Ray was among 50 people experiencing homelessness in Vancouver, British
Columbia selected in 2018 to receive a lump sum of cash deposited into their
personal bank accounts — no strings attached. The gift (about USD$5,800) was
part of a pilot project, the first of its kind, and the early results are so
impressive that cities across Canada and the U.S. are looking to try it
themselves.
For Ray, everything hit at once. After a 37-year-long career of heavy lifting
in the warehouse and construction industries, his body was failing him. In
2017, he was laid off and had to chase his employer for owed wages. When he
sought re-training, his high school English grade was two percentage points
short of qualifying. And when he didn’t meet the bureaucratic hurdles of
employment insurance, the government cut his payments. Suddenly, Ray couldn’t
make rent.
As a survivor of what’s known as the ‘60s scoop, where an overwhelming number
of Indigenous children were apprehended by the Canadian government and raised
by non-Indigenous families, Ray was used to supporting himself. The loss of
agency was a big blow. “My hands were kind of tied,” says Ray. “I just wanted
to give up, I really did.”
homeless
Ray stayed strong, even managing to honor his 15-plus years of sobriety. From a
local homeless shelter, he continued his fight to go back to school. But even
taking jobs at $100 a day back in warehousing, he just couldn’t get ahead.
Without a fridge to store food or money for a monthly bus pass, Ray was paying
the poverty premium. “By the end of the day, half of that money was gone,” he
says. It was impossible to save enough to get himself back into stable housing.
That’s when Ray was approached by members of the New Leaf Project, run by the
charity Foundations for Social Change (FSC). Through a research partnership
with the University of British Columbia led by Canada’s research chair in
behavioral sustainability, Jiaying Zhao, the pilot was designed as a randomized
control trial to measure the effects that a one-time lump-sum gift had on
people’s lives over the course of a year. Participants were recruited from
local shelters and screened to ensure they were recently homeless and
functional in their daily lives to reduce the risk of potential harm that funds
might bring if they drove people deeper into addiction. Every three months
recipients completed questionnaires and interviews about their spending and
experiences. That data was then compared with a control group."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
