Vancouver Gave Homeless People $5,800. It Changed Their Lives.

Almost 70 percent of them were food secure in one month. On average, the cash recipients spent a total of three fewer months in a shelter than those in the control group. After one year, cash recipients reduced their spending on alcohol, drugs and cigarettes by an average of almost 40 percent, challenging “the widespread misperception that people in poverty will misuse cash funds,” the report stated. At the end of the year-long study, participants had an average of $1,000 still left in the bank.