Expert on Camera
Programs that give individuals monthly payments with no strings attached have been piloted in recent years in many U.S. localities to evaluate their impacts on health, housing, and more.
On July 23, 2024, SciLine interviewed: Dr. Daniel Brisson, the director of the Center on Housing and Homelessness Research at the University of Denver. See the footage and transcript from the interview below, or select ‘Contents’ on the left to skip to specific questions.
Introduction
[0:00:20]
DANIEL BRISSON: My name is Daniel Brisson. I am a faculty member at the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver where I’m also the director of the Center for Housing and Homelessness Research. And I guess—how I would describe what I studied from broadest to more specific—I studied poverty in general, high poverty neighborhoods, communities, housing, affordable housing, specifically and then homelessness.
Interview with SciLine
Can you tell us about the Denver Basic Income Project?
[0:00:57]
DANIEL BRISSON: The Denver Basic Income Project is a guaranteed income program for people experiencing homelessness in Denver, Colorado. We asked people in Denver experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness to apply if they wanted guaranteed income—1500 people in Denver applied—we randomly selected 800 of them, and then we randomly selected those 800 to be in one of three payment groups. People in the first payment group—we call it the lump sum group—received $6,500 the day they enrolled and then received $500 for the subsequent 11 months for a total of $12,000. People in payment group B received the $1,000 a month for 12 months. And then people in payment group C—we call this our active comparison group—received $50 a month for each of the 12 months. All 800+ people also received a phone and were connected to homelessness service providing agency in Denver. And so, we distribute that cash—the last of the 12-month distributions went out in February 2024. And we are now extended six months after a two- or three-month pause, we’re extended six months. So, all participants in Groups A, B, and C are receiving $1,000 a month in the extension.
What results has the Denver Basic Income Project seen so far?
[0:02:41]
DANIEL BRISSON: People were experiencing homelessness—both sheltered and unsheltered—and after 12 months, about 45% of people across all three groups reported being in a house or apartment that they rent or own. So, I call this a really—this is a housing outcome that we think is really powerful that after 12 months in a guaranteed income program, about 45% of people were in a house or apartment that they rent or own. We also saw another really interesting one for me is that we saw increases in full-time employment for people in our lump sum and our $1,000 a month payment group. So there’s a strong critique against guaranteed income, that it’s a disincentive to work, and so it was really powerful for me to see that, in fact, among our participants who were experiencing homelessness, that there was an increase in employment with guaranteed income. And another thing we found were mixed results. We were surprised that we did not find increases in reported agency or locus of control—the ability to control one’s life. And we thought this was a really important mediating factor. And frankly, some of my conclusion is that some of our measurement instruments some of our ability to measure things quantitatively maybe aren’t exactly scaled or yeah, we’ll just say scaled, for people in a situation where they’re not sleeping in shelter that night or where they’re facing issues of hunger that these notions of agency maybe don’t change the way we want.
What has research more broadly shown about whether providing basic income works?
[0:04:46]
DANIEL BRISSON: The research, more broadly, is also mixed. I think people are a little surprised that we’re finding some benefits to things like housing. Housing is showing up as something that people are spending guaranteed income on. But that health outcomes, which I think many of many people in the field, definitely myself, I thought, depression or anxiety would be improved with cash. But we’re not seeing it through our established scales—we are seeing it through the qualitative, again, people stories talking about being able to relax or having more time to themselves. But some of our scales aren’t showing that.
What does the evidence suggest about the time it takes to see effects of basic income?
[0:05:38]
DANIEL BRISSON: The fact that we did not find differences in mental health measures was is surprising to me. I certainly thought that would be the case. And maybe one of the things—one of the conclusions we’re drawing from that—is that for our study, 12 months, just a year into the program, that we might need to give guaranteed income more time, two, or three, or five years. That coming from an experience of homelessness, that people need maybe a year just to get their life in order before they can start making strides and thriving.
