Is the idea of “basic income” the next big policy for people receiving welfare?

The Dutch city of Utrecht has decided to conduct an experiment to measure the effectiveness of lessening welfare regulations.  People already receiving welfare will be given an unconditional and regular payment monthly, and using different groups of people following different rules, the government will figure out the effects of continued payments to those who manage to find a new source of income. Skeptics of the basic income policy have argued that those on welfare become lazy to find employment, but project manager for the Utrecht city government believes that this experiment may reveal that those given public money may be trusted to be productive with it. Do you think that providing a basic income should be the new welfare policy?

To learn more: http://qz.com/437088/utrecht-will-give-money-for-free-to-its-citizens-will-it-make-them-lazier/?utm_source=parFSN

Is giving housing first a revolutionary approach to ending homelessness?

As of May 19th, the mayor of Medicine Hat, Alberta, has ended homelessness in his city (for now). Apparently, the key to ending homelessness is exactly that: a key - to their own place. This is a “housing first” approach to ending homelessness, in which officials give a homeless person housing within 10 days of discovering their homeless situation. Support services such as addressing mental or addiction problems then follow suit. Of course, ending homelessness is not so easy, with issues such as money insecurity to consider. But, do you think that the mayor is onto something with his “housing first” approach? Read more about this interesting policy here: http://tinyurl.com/kd74ppg