h a l f b a k e r yIt's not a thing. It will be a thing.
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The idea was for tokens that would only be exchangeable
for food, thus ensuring that your donation would not be
used for drugs or alcohol.
The question is whether you'll change things by making
people eat a meal now and then. You won't.*
Many homeless people are simply mentally ill. Mentally
ill
people often do drugs to cope with a mind that just doesn't
work very well. They become addicted, and they use any
further resources to feed this addiction. If you give them
tokens, they will sell them for money, and they will get
away from their minds with the proceeds.
This idea is for a similar system that makes it possible for
your donation to be exchangeable for mental health or
rehab services only. Everyone needs food. Everyone can
take advantage of people who think they don't.
If these tokens are sold, then someone profits only by
having rehab and mental health services. If they're thrown
in the gutter, them someone picks them up and hoards
them for rehab or mental health services.
This would require a system that would allow rehab service
providers to be paid by turning the tokens in.
The tokens would be given charitable tax deductions
similar to other contributions.
* I really do know what I'm talking about.
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Annotation:
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Why shouldn't we give them booze? |
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You might as well just throw these tokens right into the garbage. |
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This would add an irritating burden to
already-overstretched mental health/rehab services. They'd fill up with homeless people who don't really want to be there but go along because it's warm and they get a free cup of tea, or drug addicts who think they might get some methodone. |
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People with homes may need mental help, also...maybe even more so. |
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There would be at least some cynical health workers who would turn to becoming pushers for their patients' addictions in return for taking payment in great handfuls of tokens. Anything that can be exchanged for anything else assumes a monetary value and therefore creates an incentive to misuse the system. Free healthcare at the point of delivery is the answer (or an answer, anyway). |
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They wouldn't add a burden as sales would add to
funding. And I don't have a problem with a homeless
person getting warm, dry, and clean on my rehab
dime. |
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