Small sums of financial assistance can help stabilize housing for low-income people and stave off homelessness, with its numerous related social problems, a University of Notre Dame study concluded. Targeted emergency financial assistance of a few hundred dollars for rent, security deposits, utility payments or other cash emergencies can save taxpayers $20,000 or more each time homelessness is prevented, according to the study published in the August issue of Science. Cash assistance can keep people off the street for two years or more, said James Sullivan, co-director of Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities and one of the study's authors, during a Capitol Hill briefing on Sept. 15. “The key takeaway is that...we want to address this one-time emergency so that they stay on their feet, don’t fall under this downward spiral and then they don’t fall into homelessness again in the future,” he said.
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Ernest Martinson
7 years 6 months ago
Bad investments are tax expenditures such as the mortgage interest and property tax deductions, the capital gains exclusions, and the nontaxation of imputed rent on owner-occupied housing. This can be remedied by ending the taxation of income.
Other bad investments were Government Sponsored Enterprises such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the Federal Housing Administration. Get government out before it drives you out of house and home.
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