Starting in July of 2024, we provided basic income to 6 homeless people in Maricopa County, Arizona. This pilot was meant to demonstrate our ability to disperse money to homeless individuals in a cost-effective way and to perform scientific research.
Pilot Structure
Participants were randomly selected in collaboration with two local service providers – A New Leaf and Tempe Community Action Agency. Each participant was placed into one of three groups:
- Group A: $100/month for 6 months (2 participants)
- Group B: $200/month for 6 months (2 participants)
- Group C: $300/month for 6 months (2 participants)
To disperse money to the participants, we gave each of them a card, which also allowed us to track their purchases. At the start of the pilot, we performed baseline surveys with all of the participants, and, at the end of the pilot, we performed follow-up surveys for those we were able to re-contact.
Results
Of our six participants, we were only able to re-contact four of them. (This is a common follow-up rate for studies on the homeless.) Of these four, 100% stated that they were able to re-gain housing.
Unfortunately, one of the participants had a work accident that put him in the hospital, so we were unable to do a follow-up survey for him. For the three remaining these are our results:
- All participants reported being able to either obtain part or full-time employment or start a work-training program.
- All participants reported a decrease in the use of drugs and alcohol.
- All participants reported feeling safer, especially regarding the theft of their personal property.
- All participants reported a reduction in their reliance on public services such as hospitals and law enforcement.
- Participants generally thought that $200 a month would be quite helpful.
Additionally, since we were able to track how all of the participants spent the money on their cards, this is data for how the participants spent their funds:
Notably, participants spent most of their money on food, stores of various kinds, and bills. The largest percentage of their money went towards ATM cash withdrawals, so we’re unable to know how they spent it. That said, the participants we spoke to said that most of the ATM cash withdrawals went towards covering bills and cash-only purchases.
Limitations
Since this program was very small, it is only intended to demonstrate our ability to offer basic income and perform scientific research. If this were a real study, we would have used a randomized control trial, possibly comparing basic income to another intervention. Additionally, we would look into ways to gain data that is not merely survey-based. Lastly, we would continue to perform follow-up surveys with participants to determine whether the effect of our intervention are long-lasting.
What We’ve Learned
We had three major lessons from this pilot:
On the other hand, we want to have as complete data as possible in order to examine the effects of our interventions.
- Even a small amount of economic security makes a big difference.
- Participants reported that $200 a month was surprisingly helpful to them.
- Re-establishing contact for follow-up surveys can be difficult with the homeless population.
- For this reason, we plan to give cell phones to future participants for follow-up surveys.
- Allowing participants to withdraw ATM cash makes it hard to track their spending.
- We are unsure how to respond to this:
- On one hand, we want to treat homeless individuals with as much dignity as possible and to enable them to make cash-only purchases.
- On the other hand, we want to have as complete data as possible in order to examine the effects of our interventions.
- We are unsure how to respond to this: