Photo: Micheile Henderson | Unsplash
The widely held stereotype that people experiencing homelessness would be more likely to spend extra cash on drugs, alcohol, and “temptation goods” has been upended by a study that found a majority used a payment of 7,500 Canadian dollars mostly on food, rent, housing, transit and clothes. The biases punctured by the study highlight the difficulties in developing policies to reduce homelessness, say the Canadian researchers behind it. They said the unconditional cash appeared to reduce homelessness, giving added weight to calls for a guaranteed basic income that would help adults cover essential living expenses. The study comes as lawmakers in Canada are under mounting pressure to implement a universal basic income project that would ease a cost-of-living crisis.
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