Dirt poor?

[Clodfobble]

Getting back to the how-does-Elspode's-son-live hypothetical...

(Correct me if I'm wrong on any of these steps: )

So, in your ideal world, beyond the actual goods-and-services charities, like a meal and a place to sleep for the night, would there be straight-up money charities? It sounds like his son is capable of living on his own, he just can't work at a capacity to make enough money to live. BUT... if there are charities where you can just get a check, what's to stop those who want to from collecting such a check from EVERY charity?

Right now, because there's really only one place to go and get money directly, you can't collect more than once unless you start stealing Social Security numbers (don't get me wrong, I think Social Security is a scam, I'm just trying to figure out how this new system would work.) Would all the new charities that pop up have to be sure to communicate with each other, make sure no one's taking $300 a month or whatever from all of them? I think charities that gave actual money would soon disappear.

So let's say, instead, the charities won't give you money directly, but they'll pay your landlord directly. What's to stop the landlord from collecting multiple times and giving kickbacks to the person living there?

So where does that leave Elspode's son? He would have to rely on someone providing him with all his goods-and-services directly, since in theory there's no advantage to having them duplicated. Ok, so effectively, he'd have to live in a "home" where everything would be taken care of for him.

But a lot of people simply couldn't live like that. Would someone with Multiple Sclerosis have to live in a dorm with a bunch of people with Down's Syndrome, just because his muscles wouldn't enable him to work more than part-time? A lot of folks would consider it degrading, both being lumped in with people with all sorts of disabilities, as well as giving up so much independence when they really only need a little help.

If all direct payments for people on Social Security were removed, you'd have to have a big shift in how the benefits of charity were realized. If you were put in charge of an extremely large non-profit charity group, that could cover a lot of different needs, how would you structure it?