Let's see if I am right.
a single mom who works in an office making 1.5x minimum wage, but whose expenses have risen (perhaps by medical) and she fell behind on rent, and now lives out of her car. Still employed but just doesn’t have the capital to get back on her feet.
To:
A complete drug addicted mentally ill schizophrenic who shits on himself. Hasn’t had a job ever, hasn’t been educated, and can not hold a cogent conversation.
I wouldn’t dream of giving cash to the latter but would certainly consider doing so for the former. Both are homeless. And conversations about solutions to the homeless are fruitless if we treat them the same. The English language is rich and it needs more words to disambiguate these two classes of homeless.
This all being said, the homeless referred to the welfare check day where I lived as “Mardi Gras” and got shitfaced on booze. Which to me is a problem which could be largely fixed by doing more frequent welfare transfers. Keep in mind though the people getting welfare are diverse, this study was concerning the recently homeless.
On the whole the homeless virtually never are negatively affected by cash anyways. If anything they benefit from each dollar more than the average person would. Even a drug addict is seldom better off poorer.
On the flip side, giving them more money could reduce the likelihood they turn to crime to fund their addictions.
It wouldn't have to be hard labor, I'm thinking park beautification or paid internships for skilled jobs that have shortages.
Long term I see "free" money from the government just expanding the class of people that are dependent upon the government for their way of life. The old "teach a man to fish" addage.
