Four top LA academics want to give the city's homeless population $1,000 a month in taxpayer cash with no strings attached

Four prominent academics in Los Angeles said a monthly payment of $1,000 with no strings attached could save the city from the rampant homeless crisis. 

Thousands of homeless people in LA could secure housing in boarding homes and shared apartments if they were provided with monthly payments ranging from $750 to $1,000, according to the proposal. 

Citing multiple pilot studies conducted across the country, the four authors highlighted the effectiveness of basic income in a draft of their policy brief titled Basic Income Grants to Reduce Homelessness in Los Angeles.

But the authors, Gary Blasi, Benjamin F. Henwood, Sam Tsemberis and Dan Flaming, did not say how the grants should be funded or who are eligible for the payment. 

They wrote: 'If properly implemented, it could help move tens of thousands of currently homeless Angelenos into housing at a far lower cost per person than our current system.' 

Four prominent academics in Los Angeles said a monthly payment of $1,000 with no strings attached could save the city from the rampant homeless crisis

Citing multiple pilot studies conducted across the country, the four authors highlighted the effectiveness of basic income in a draft of their policy brief titled Basic Income Grants to Reduce Homelessness in Los Angeles. Pictured: authors Benjamin Henwood (left) and Sam Tsemberis (right)

But the authors did not say how the grants should be funded or who are eligible for the payment. Pictured: authors Daniel Flaming (left) and Gary Blasi (right)

 'The idea that to give poor people money is controversial is just strange to me,' said co-author Henwood in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. 

'Of course that will help,' said the director of the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research at the USC School of Social Work.  

 'If the idea is to reduce the number of people on the street, definitely the fastest way to do that is money,' lead author Blasi, a professor emeritus in the UCLA School of Law, told the Times. 

Blasi believes the current complex system has been built up 'primarily to help people with serious disabilities,' which proves ineffective to reduce homeless people on the street. 

The authors argued that it's a lengthy and expensive process to rely on housing navigators to help unhoused people under the current system.   

'The truth is, we cannot afford not to do better than the current system, which spends a huge amount of money to house a small fraction of those in need,' they wrote. 

 'Providing interim housing during this process can be very costly, as is adding to the supply of housing,' they added. 

The authors argued that it's a lengthy and expensive process to rely on housing navigators to help unhoused people under the current system. Pictured: a homeless person sleeps beneath a blanket on a sidewalk in Skid Row

Tsemberis also emphasized that basic housing aid is not intended for every homeless person on the streets as he said, 'This is for the group that has more resources internally, a work history, isn't struggling mightily with mental illness or addiction' 

LA is currently home to more than 46,000 unhoused people, a 10 percent increase on the previous year, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

Instead, the academics suggested a different source of affordable housing - 'informal housing'. 

'Informal housing, once a subject of study only in developing countries, means housing that does not conform to the standards of the formal housing market,' they wrote. 

'It includes shared housing arrangements, housing that does not meet all code requirements, rooms rented in single-family homes.' 

'There's a vast informal rental market going on already all across California,' co-author Tsemberis, a clinical community psychologist with the UCLA School of Psychiatry, said. 

'People are renting out single-family homes. They have two or three beds in each of the bedrooms and are charging $400, $500 a month for people to sleep.'

Tsemberis also emphasized that basic housing aid is not intended for every homeless person on the streets. 

'This is for the group that has more resources internally, a work history, isn't struggling mightily with mental illness or addiction,' he said. 

Bass has instead urged the 'most fortunate' to help deal with the crisis as part of the LA4LA scheme, her latest homelessness prevention initiative

Homelessness in downtown LA in particular has exploded since the pandemic, with more than 10,000 more unhoused people on the streets since 2019

LA is currently home to more than 46,000 unhoused people, a 10 percent increase on the previous year, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. 

Homelessness in downtown LA in particular has exploded since the pandemic, with more than 10,000 more unhoused people on the streets since 2019. 

Since 2015, homelessness in the city has increased 70 percent. Services from nonprofits like Midnights Mission have been pushed to the limits of their resources. 

The Mission serves three meals a day to those living on the streets, as well as providing services such as temporary accommodation, a barbershop and a women's crisis center. 

In just three years, female homelessness in LA has increased 55 percent, according to the organization. More than 90 percent of those women have experienced physical or sexual assault.

Los Angeles County has a budget of $609.7 million to tackle homelessness in 2023-2024, $61.8 million more than the previous year. 

The budget goes toward reducing encampments, increasing interim and permanent housing placements and ramping up mental health and substance use disorder services for people experiencing homelessness.