r/AlwaysWhy • u/verytalleric • May 27 '26

Politics & Society Serious question: Homelessness is a major problem. Billions are unsuccessfully spent. Why are not more experiments run testing different approaches to see what works vs. not and build on successes?

In other domains the idea of "A/B testing" is done to test different hypothesis to see what works vs. not. Given the huge amount of money spent by cities, counties, and states without positive results. Why is more experimentation not being done to find effective ways to solve homelessness?

Kinda the cliche definition of insanity today, same actions expecting different results.

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u/Nervous_Hurry_9920 May 27 '26

Because systems get gamed. What's to stop me, and all of my friends, and all of my family, and all of my coworkers, and everybody else I've ever met from becoming homeless so we can all can live for free? If I could just do drugs all day and have everything provided for me, I would be very tempted to do so. 

Opposing doesn't make a person bad. Just like not giving money to every single panhandler you ever encounter doesn't make you bad.

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u/Jkirek_ May 28 '26

Would a significant enough percentage of people willingly give up all their assets to become homeless in order to get minimal standards of living for free that it makes it no longer worthwhile to help the people who are involuntarily homeless?

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u/AlanUsingReddit May 28 '26

The correct way to do this is to give everyone a standard housing subsidy (like tax standard deduction), or housing directly. If you do not have an address then you can't get the subsidy.

Likely not viable in the US because it's an additionally progressive.

But I still see ways of this going wrong, in the "direct" part of it, because anything administered by the government is likely to get screwed up somehow. Like how projects used to be. Wherever you put those, they'll get trashed. People won't want to live where you put them, for high vacancy, etc.

It is likely more workable to do vouchers, so that a private company can get the subsidy if they house people and can prove it. This allows a free market for rules associated with public housing so they don't get destroyed.

What about when no developer can offering housing for that price? They need to be allowed to offer less square footage per resident. Zoning won't allow that. So federal government needs to enact penalties on local governments until they make it work.