当旧金山的非营利组织去年开始了基本收入的飞行员- 一小群人每月每月500美元的无家可归者六个月 - 它不希望现金足以帮助人们在平均每月超过3,000美元的平均一居室公寓租金的城市找到住房。
该组织预测这笔钱将有助于减轻压力并改善粮食安全，而且确实如此。但是，当飞行员开始时没有受到不满的人中，三分之二也有永久性的住房。（自该计划首次结束以来，这个数字已经增加，当时只有三分之一搬进了新住房。）
“有一定程度的怀疑，例如，这是怎么发生的？”非营利组织奇迹消息的创始人兼首席执行官凯文·阿德勒（Kevin Adler）说。“这是一个重要的叙述，能够实现 - 我们不受欢迎的邻居通常会更多地利用资源，住房选择，可能能够开放的网络，但缺少一些资金。对我来说，这是看到该机构和每个不受欢迎的邻居的内在尊严的重要性的另一个证词。”
基本收入的飞行员正在迅速增长。温哥华飞行员给了未受住的收件人7,000美元现金。从新泽西州纽瓦克到芝加哥的几个城市也正在测试giving direct cash transfers to people living in poverty。这个想法很简单：生活在贫困中的人需要钱，他们处于最佳位置，可以知道如何花钱。
In the San Francisco pilot, most people spent the money on food and rent. But two people also chose to adopt service dogs to help with their anxiety. Others used the money to help support family members. One woman used part of the funds each month to buy food to share with children in her neighborhood who didn’t have enough to eat. Another used some of the money to buy gas to get to work and clothes to wear on the job. A person with impaired vision bought audiobooks. One person even donated some money back to the program, saying, “I didn’t do it for you, I did it for myself to once again feel the dignity of being able to support the causes that I believe in.”
The program was unique because of its strong social component—the nonprofit’s primary work involves connecting people experiencing homelessness with volunteers who become friends, staying in touch with weekly calls and texts. Everyone who participated had already had a volunteer “buddy” for at least three months, and to get the money they had to agree to continue that relationship.
“This program would not have worked for me if I didn’t have the social aspect of it,” says Ray, one of the recipients, who asked to be identified by only his first name. Jen, the volunteer who became his friend, he says, “gave me three things, and that was hope, confidence, and friendship. With those three things, I was able to gather myself and think about what’s better for me, what’s good for me. And you can’t do that alone. There’s just no way in this world you can do that alone.”
Someone who is homeless is also often likely to experience what the nonprofit calls “relational poverty,” meaning they have little social support. Building a relationship with a volunteer helped recipients begin to believe in a different future. Ray says Jen gave him “the confidence to to know that at one point or another, this is going to end and it’s going to change.” Volunteers also helped recipients talk through how they could use the money to reach specific goals.
现金可能无法帮助每个人无家可归的人。飞行员小组很小，并且根据诸如资金可能会帮助他们的因素，与他们的“好友”的参与程度以及他们目前是否面临诸如成瘾之类的挑战之类的因素，对接收者进行了仔细的选择。但是研究表明，即使是少量的钱也对某些人产生了有意义的影响。In monthly interviews, recipients talked about how they were using the funds and answered a long list of questions about things like how often they’d felt anxious or how often they’d worried that food would run out before they could buy more (some 77% of recipients said that they had lower levels of psychological distress; all said that they felt more financially secure).
The nonprofit now plans to work with researchers in Los Angeles to conduct a randomized controlled trial that will rigorously test how much the approach can help—including beginning with existing relationships and offering strong social support along with the money. “Basic-income pilots are popping up left and right,” Adler says. “But very few of them are looking at the social capital element—the relational poverty as well as the poverty that the recipient is facing.”