Wow that was not my experience. They were just as eager to call up their friends and hold a kick back while making my partner and I wait only to refuse to file a report for a break and entry of our rental in Houston.
It was an anecdotal example. Other examples I saw include drug paraphernalia (e.g. needles) littered all over the sidewalks, vast encampments of homeless people, and no police presence. Maybe a bad day? I've been to Houston many times and never seen anything like that. I've also seen shadier parts of NYC but the level of despair appeared much higher in SF.
We definitely have what we like to call an 'opioid' problem here.
I lived in Houston from Rita to Harvey. Also had serious drug problems. Needles and all. There is no way other people living in Houston could not have noticed these issues. Homelessness, drugs, rampant crime.
For San Fran to be different from Houston, there would need to be something more.
"Those who got the stipend were less likely to be unsheltered after six months and able to meet more of their basic needs than a control group that got no money, and half as likely as the control group to have an episode of being unsheltered."
I guess you’re right as another comment mention headline… I did not got it right: I assumed we’re talking about the articled, not only the title. May you point out why your original comment is about the headline and not the topic itself? Me and my English skills will be grateful.
monsecchris wrote "If that’s the best they can say about $750 a month, it sounds like a terrible investment."
Good point that there is no explicit reference to the headline. And yet it was completely clear to me, at first glance, that this was about the headline.
There is a reference. "THAT" refers to the headline's criteria ("improved"). The headline is the closest thing to this "that" - rather than some other part of the article. It's still slim because really the rest of the article is not much further (Good luck LLMs). What clinches it is "that" reference matches logically:
Logically: First this was also my immediate reaction to the headline: it is content-free. "$750/m no questions asked" would improve anyone's life. "improve" is not a useful way to judge this experiment. The headline is absurd. Second: I expected that the study looked at more than that - but only so far - more "hoped" than expected. Third: Then "If THAT's the best they can say" makes sense. It's a quip (short, sarcastic, funny, sadly true) and a realistic one, at the bar that the article editorial crew picked. We often see studies that boast ... but show very marginal results. Is THAT really the best the study got? In fact no, the study measured more (arguably - it's far from bullet proof because of dumb self reporting [did you buy drugs with this? how about with other money?]). They have more of a claim to success. But either the editors were stupid in writing their headline, OR - quite possible - they were sarcastic. Indeed people are aware that it's going to be easy to dismiss the study "It may not be earth-shattering that providing money is going to help meet basic needs" says one of the people involved.
So anyway, "that" was a weak reference. But it had a strong logical match to the headline.
There might be. The point is, that's not the narrative we're being force fed.
In the past couple of weeks I've heard multiple news media segments where some talking head is interviewing some "expert" and asking the same question, "Why isn't the public believing the economic news?" Yet neither of them considered: let's ask the public, we can do that.
So here's news on why, and there's a couple disconnect at the top from the middle and the bottom. Yeah, nothing new...until there's an election and the exploited vote to show their frustration. It doesn't - and shouldn't - have to be this way.
The reason the previous owners were eager to dump Twitter was because Elon offered far more than it was worth, despite it being a cash flow positive business.
He backed out because he was foolish enough to think that the legally binding offer was not in fact binding.
