This reminded me of a dynamic I saw in city government when it was working with non profits, although not quite exactly the same. The example I'm thinking of is that the city placed requirements on non-profits that were helping unhoused people find housing, so shelters and so forth. Sounds good, right? And on the surface, it is. You don't want these non profits to be taking funding from the city and elsewhere and not helping people get housing.
However, the restrictions were so unrealistic, that in practice, the non profits had to end up cherry picking people that they'd let into their case management profiles and offer housing. At the time it was realistic that someone may find permanent housing after around a year (and even that was on the shorter side) but the city for some reason was giving the non profits something like 90 days. It was really just a data/numbers game and when the city set the numbers to play the game the non profits had to set their clients. This led to people who faced the most barriers and arguably needed help the most to not get help. For example a white mother with a child may look better on paper when the case managers were calling around and trying to find a fit than a non white male. As an aside, that's what really bothered me about Amazon's "contribution" to homelesness in Seattle - they chose to help the least objectionable class of homeless people, moms with kids, who already have loads of non profits fighting over them and doors open to them that pretty much anyone else in that situation doesn't have. We need more low-barrier resources.
Anyway, just another example that goes to show you, kind of a game theory thing, if you start out with some kind of fixed rules of the game, even with the best intentions, people are going to game the system to match it and often come to a totally different outcome than you were intending.
However, the restrictions were so unrealistic, that in practice, the non profits had to end up cherry picking people that they'd let into their case management profiles and offer housing. At the time it was realistic that someone may find permanent housing after around a year (and even that was on the shorter side) but the city for some reason was giving the non profits something like 90 days. It was really just a data/numbers game and when the city set the numbers to play the game the non profits had to set their clients. This led to people who faced the most barriers and arguably needed help the most to not get help. For example a white mother with a child may look better on paper when the case managers were calling around and trying to find a fit than a non white male. As an aside, that's what really bothered me about Amazon's "contribution" to homelesness in Seattle - they chose to help the least objectionable class of homeless people, moms with kids, who already have loads of non profits fighting over them and doors open to them that pretty much anyone else in that situation doesn't have. We need more low-barrier resources.
Anyway, just another example that goes to show you, kind of a game theory thing, if you start out with some kind of fixed rules of the game, even with the best intentions, people are going to game the system to match it and often come to a totally different outcome than you were intending.