By Adele Peters, Photo: Matthias Mullie/Unsplash, Fast Company, February 2, 2022
When a San Francisco-based nonprofit started a basic-income pilot last year—giving a small group of people experiencing homelessness $500 per month for six months—it didn’t expect that the cash would be enough to help people find housing in a city where the average one-bedroom apartment rents for more than $3,000 a month.
The group predicted that the money would help reduce stress and improve food security, and it did. But two-thirds of the people who were unhoused when the pilot began also now have permanent housing. (The number has grown since the program first ended, when only a third had moved into new housing.)
“There’s a level of incredulity, like, how did this happen?” says Kevin Adler, founder and CEO of Miracle Messages, the nonprofit. “That’s an important narrative to be able to realize—our unhoused neighbors are often more tapped into resources, housing options, networks that might be able to open up, but just are lacking a little bit of funds. For me, it’s yet another testimony of the importance of seeing the agency and the intrinsic dignity of each of our unhoused neighbors.”
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