Greater Change hands a rough sleeper a small grant to fix the one barrier they name

问题

Homeless people are 'ready' to leave but blocked at the last step by a small cost no standard program covers

背景

换别人会怎么做

Every standard fix works on the supply or assessment side: build more housing, add more case managers, or improve the professional intake so better casework spots what each client needs. All of them fail here for the same reason — the single blocking barrier (a £700 deposit, £860 of arrears, a training fee) is different for every person, is a small cash cost rather than a service gap, and cannot be discovered from outside no matter how good the assessment is, because only the client can see it.

他们看到了什么

The designer cannot see the fact that decides success — which small barrier blocks this person, different for everyone, only they can see it — so handing the money decision to the client is the only way to reach it.

那一手

Greater Change (founded 2018 by two university friends after volunteering) gives each client a small personalised cash grant to overcome the single financial barrier they name: a deposit, clearing arrears, a training fee, essential furnishings. Partner charities and support workers refer clients and hold the budget, which is released as a fast, one-off payment once the client and their key worker agree a sustainable plan; support workers facilitate rather than gatekeep what the money is for.

为什么管用

Because the barrier is person-specific and invisible from outside, a standard program administered by someone who cannot see it spends money on the wrong things; a client-named grant spends on exactly the one thing that unlocks that person's exit. Fast, one-off, and small, it fixes the crack at the moment it forms rather than running a standing service. The money buys out of homelessness precisely because recipients spend it on the barrier only they could name, and the support-worker-held budget keeps the payment inside, rather than duplicating, the existing system. The result — same person now housed — averts the council's continuing temporary-accommodation and health-and-justice costs, which is where the order-of-magnitude public saving comes from.

值了多少

86% of people supported kept their housing, at ~£1,319 per intervention against ~£35,000 a year in public savings; now across 18 councils.

什么时候会失灵

It assumes the client has a realistic exit plan to unlock (the money accelerates an already-feasible path, it does not create one where there is no paid work or stable destination), and that a trusted support worker is present to hold the budget — with neither, the grant either funds an unworkable plan or sits without guidance. It does not replace the need for housing supply, and it is vulnerable both to the funder over-controlling what the money may buy (which re-imports the information gap it was built to close) and, if left unexamined, to its own internal misuse — the same oversight risk GiveDirectly hit. And unrestricted cash remains politically fragile wherever the stigma objection is loud enough to block its rollout, however weak the evidence for it.

后来呢

Greater Change won a 2025 World Habitat Award and a UK Prime Minister's Points of Light, and its client-led model sits on the same evidence base as earlier unrestricted-cash trials (Vancouver's New Leaf, St Martin-in-the-Fields's Personal Grants, both with no adverse incidents). A UK-government-funded randomised controlled trial with the Centre for Homelessness Impact began after the approach was already in operation, measuring whether the mechanism generalises.

资料来源

1. [1]A charity is giving people money to stop homelessness — and it says it's workingBBC News, 2025bbc.com
2. [2]Greater Change: Personalised Budgets To Alleviate Homelessness — 2026 World Habitat Awards Project SummaryWorld Habitat, 20269ba98c9995b36e2d6fac.b-cdn.net
3. [3]Greater Change: personalised budgets to support people out of homelessnessHomeless Link, 2023homeless.org.uk

收下它

同一路聪明

• 1964 · Ahlgrim Family Funeral Services, Palatine, IllinoisA funeral home's biggest problem was that nobody wants to walk into one until they absolutely have to — so this one gave the neighborhood a reason to come in for fun, decades before they'd ever need it for a funeral.
• 2008 · Benrath Senior CentreA nursing home built a bus stop where no bus comes, so wandering patients wait instead of vanish
• 500 BCE · Ancient Greek city-states (proxenia)A merchant from another city-state had no standing, no protection and no one obligated to vouch for him in a foreign port — so Greek cities stopped sending their own people abroad and appointed a local instead.