Pity the government official coping with budget crises and all the demands on shrinking resources. Their decisions can have ripple effects with unintended consequences. For instance, a decision to reduce benefits when individuals are sharing housing. Of course, from one perspective the beneficiary may not need as much money as when they weren’t sharing housing. However, why set things up so that people are discouraged from pooling resources to improve their housing situation?
This quote is from an article of the Daily Californian (June, 2010 no longer on the web) “Speakers at the meeting asked the supervisors to eliminate medical and shared housing deductions from general assistance. As of last September, recipients may have $40 deducted from their assistance for not having health insurance and 10 to 25 percent of their assistance deducted for sharing housing.” “This rule does not make sense,” said Gina Gemello, a law student working at the law center. “It tells GA recipients not to be resourceful, not to pool their resources, not to reduce overhead housing costs.”
We couldn’t agree more.
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