[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I disagree. Living in a non-shared accommodation is no less a need than living in a house with three other people. The base need is shelter, everything above that is essentially a "want" if that's how you choose to look at it, which includes basically anything above a drop-in shelter.

You also need to clarify what you think the government should base the funding level on. Two people? Three? Four? Five? It's nice in theory to allow the government dictate how many people you need to live with to survive, but that's not how it should be calculated.

Say you arbitrarily set the amount at $500, and say this covers a shared accommodation expense with an average of three people. The availability for affordable housing units in Calgary is already low, with many low-income people struggling to find homes they can afford, so what are you going to do? Spent the money to build more? Or just say "here's an amount that could get you into affordable housing, now, there may not be any affordable housing for you to get into at that amount, but that's not our problem." It defeats the purpose of a UBI, does it not? If it's not enough to live because it your limits your options further than just "luxury vs non-luxury" down to "having a place to live or not"... it's not enough, is it?

I guess I would say that the funds for having your own place vs living with a roommate could (generally speaking) come from the income from working vs the government program. There needs to be a limit somewhere.