Who Would Have Thought It?
This year I will provide, from time to time, information about good ideas. Here, in the first post for 2024, is the first good idea: giving cash with no restrictions to the homeless. "What?" people might think, "Won't they spend it all on drugs?" (an incorrect stereotype). No.
Ben Henwood, the director of USC's Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research, led a study in which 69 people in Los Angeles and San Francisco, who were unsheltered the month the study began, were given $750/month for six months, at the end of which their rate of homelessness went from 30% to 12% (a control group went from 28% to 25%).
It wasn't clear to me why a study on homelessness gave money to a group of which only 30% were homeless; the newspaper article describing this didn't go into sufficient detail about the methodology. Nevertheless, a large portion of that 30% were no longer unsheltered six months later.
Kevin Adler, the founder of Miracle Messages, a non-profit that distributed the funds, said: "People used the money better than we could have used it for them. When we trust people, they can resolve their issues. They know what they need."
Creativity
A creative act is one in which two unrelated thoughts come together to form a new idea. For example, once when traveling, I opened a recalcitrant water bottle by putting it's cap in the space between the two sides of the doorjamb, closing the door on it, and then turning the bottle.
I linked the idea of the stubborn cap to the power I could create by closing the door on it. Henwood linked the thought of a homeless person with the thought of monthly unrestricted payments and created his experiment.
You have undoubtedly had such creative moments yourself. They can occur spontaneously, in nature, under certain conditions (that would take too long to explain here...they are described in my book, Emotional Comfort), but an Inner Guide can cause them to occur on a regular basis, when needed.
If you don't yet have an Inner Guide, you can acquire one here: https://emotionalcomfort.com/blog/post/you-can-acquire-an-inner-guide-part-4
Happy New Year, and may you have many moments of creativity!
