We are having some important conversations about equality these days, so I think it’s worth bringing up this point. The notion of subsidizing housing for non-profit workers is concerning. While many non-profits deal with problems like homelessness that overwhelmingly victimize people of color, non-profit workers themselves are overwhelmingly white. Much more so than the workforce as a whole: https://communitywealth.com/the-state-of-diversity-in-the-no.... Moreover a large fraction of revenues (for example, 65% for “human services” non-profits) comes from the government, so it’s taxpayer dollars that are paying for people to live in San Francisco and would be paying to subsidize their housing.
This is one reason why people are interested in things like UBI. It seems perverse for the government to use taxpayer dollars to say combat homelessness in San Francisco (the supermajority of whom are black, Hispanic, or multi-racial) only to have much of that money go to paying salaries for mostly white college educated people. Of course, non-profit workers of all ethnic backgrounds can be tremendous value-adds. But when we’re considering whether we want to subsidize housing for those workers, it’s worth stepping back for a moment. There is a lot of money on the line: even excluding universities and hospitals, non-profits spend $750 billion annually, more than the US military. When taxpayers spend money out of a desire to help certain groups of people—especially now that we are becoming more aware of the disproportionate impact of things like homelessness on certain groups—we should strive to make sure that the money helps the people taxpayers think they are helping.
This is one reason why people are interested in things like UBI. It seems perverse for the government to use taxpayer dollars to say combat homelessness in San Francisco (the supermajority of whom are black, Hispanic, or multi-racial) only to have much of that money go to paying salaries for mostly white college educated people. Of course, non-profit workers of all ethnic backgrounds can be tremendous value-adds. But when we’re considering whether we want to subsidize housing for those workers, it’s worth stepping back for a moment. There is a lot of money on the line: even excluding universities and hospitals, non-profits spend $750 billion annually, more than the US military. When taxpayers spend money out of a desire to help certain groups of people—especially now that we are becoming more aware of the disproportionate impact of things like homelessness on certain groups—we should strive to make sure that the money helps the people taxpayers think they are helping.