I'm not objecting to UBI, and certainly not to UBI-like experiments. Nor was SV_BubbleTime, AFAICT. But SV_BubbleTime makes a significant and important point, and a legitimate retort to the opinion, "direct cash and housing first models are absolutely the best first approaches for the unhoused".
San Francisco adopted precisely those policies 15 years ago, providing free housing and direct cash payments, and most who live in San Francisco and understand the history of the policies probably have reservations about free housing and direct cash being the "best first approaches". Even Governor Newsom, who was the mayor who did the most to accelerate and materialize those policies (e.g. ~8k housing units for the homeless have been built or converted since 2005) has admitted that those policies were incomplete and naive.
EDIT: s/15k housing units/8k housing units/. Per https://londonbreed.medium.com/homelessness-recovery-plan-40.... (Google search sucks these days so difficult to find the better sources I originally had in mind.) Note that these are units, not shelter beds. San Francisco has built more permanent housing for the homeless than the entire homeless population when the program started.
San Francisco adopted precisely those policies 15 years ago, providing free housing and direct cash payments, and most who live in San Francisco and understand the history of the policies probably have reservations about free housing and direct cash being the "best first approaches". Even Governor Newsom, who was the mayor who did the most to accelerate and materialize those policies (e.g. ~8k housing units for the homeless have been built or converted since 2005) has admitted that those policies were incomplete and naive.
EDIT: s/15k housing units/8k housing units/. Per https://londonbreed.medium.com/homelessness-recovery-plan-40.... (Google search sucks these days so difficult to find the better sources I originally had in mind.) Note that these are units, not shelter beds. San Francisco has built more permanent housing for the homeless than the entire homeless population when the program started.