Homeless people tend to get a bad rap from people, so one charity group wanted to see what they were really like. A Vancouver-based charity discovered that giving money to the homeless is not as bad as people believe it is.
Vancouver charity doing good while breaking the stereotype of homeless people
The Vancouver-based New Leaf Project took a group of 115 homeless people and dropped $7,500 into the pockets of 50 of them. They hoped to see them be able to turn their lives around.
After one full year, most still had $1,000 saved, and more than 60 percent could still feed themselves every day. According to the researchers, the participant’s average was 42, and 33% of them reported having a child.
Research showing that the homeless actually doing good for themselves with the extra money
Many would argue that the money would be spent on junk like drugs and alcohol. The study showed that it was actually spent on what they deemed important. Spending on alcohol and drugs actually went down by 39 percent. This could possibly be because those participants saw a real chance to turn their lives around.
According to the Foundation for Charitable Giving, those who received the money were found to have moved into housing two months faster than those without the extra allowance.
The study showed that British Columbia actually saved money. Especially when they were having to spend money on emergency services for a few years. The shelter system was able to save $8,000 per person for a total of $400,000 over one year.
It’s good to see that what people assume about homeless people has been disproven in a small way. We saw that these people with the extra money were actually doing good for themselves and using the money to better themselves. What are your thoughts or comments? Share them in the section below.
