I am not sure if i have anything more intelligent to add, but i will post some of my experience for being poor, I guess most here dont have such experience in their life.<p>First I would say It is not only &quot;critical&quot;, I argue it &quot;IS&quot; the problem of basic income.<p>For those who has been crying out about property pricing in your area, you should take a look in Hong Kong. The most ridiculously expensive location on earth.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scmp.com&#x2F;property&#x2F;article&#x2F;1905261&#x2F;hong-kong-most-expensive-housing-market-world-sixth-year-row-survey" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scmp.com&#x2F;property&#x2F;article&#x2F;1905261&#x2F;hong-kong-most-...</a><p>A lot of people here are going on about Health Care, and Education System. But to me, those are different part of the equation. Do you ever see poor people buy insurance for health care or get a book to read to &quot;enrich&quot; themselves? Poor People only cares about a few things, whether they have enough money left this month, How long will these savings last them to pay for food and rent.<p>There are 3 things that is what I think should be needs of basic income, Clothes, Food, Housing.<p>Clothes are commodities these days, you can get all the clothes you need for a tiny amount of money. As long as you dont care about fashion. What needs to be done here is clothing for extreme weather, namely Cold weather.<p>Food, at one point in my life i spend average less then $2 USD per day on food. For nearly 12 months. People here claiming their Basic Income should cover their meal for McDonald or other outgoing dinning. ( May be in US only ) But that is not the point, real poor would care about savings. You can buy your food in bulk for extremely cheap prices, pasta or spaghetti, then get some Hams or Vegetable. As long as you go to supermarket and watch your pennies, there is no reason why you cant feed yourself for less then a Fiver a day. You just have to cook it yourself. Nutrients being another problem on $2, you should get by ok with $5.<p>Even without such thing as basic income, it is not hard to see as long as you get a Job today, as a hard working labor intensive job or part time, you can can enough for clothes and food and not worry about starving to deaths.<p>The problem then, lies down to Housing. Renting leaves you with the feeling you may get kicked out any day, and you will spend hopeless amount of hours trying to find a place that fits your budget. I suggest anyone who has never been through living on the streets to watch the &quot;Pursuit of Happiness&quot; by Will Smith. Although most people would had an different ending then the movie. Rent also cost you the largest percentage amount of your income. Where you can save a lot on Clothing and Food, there is no such thing as saving on Rent. Food and Clothes as commodities, it happens the most expensive out of the three is not a commodities but instead an Monopoly.<p>For Example what is the point of having $1000 basic income when $800 of it goes to Rent? And rental prices is being driven up by lots of factors.<p>Therefore as long as Housing market remains an investment asset, susceptible of being driven up by insane amount. ( Think about Rent in 2008 and now ), it will remain an unsolvable problem no matter how you price the Basic Income. Germany and some other European countries has rule to protect tenants from rent price hike. Some even take % of Housing Market profit as tax on top of the tax in place.<p>Government needs to provide basic housing, small even 15-20 meter square will do, with basic such as hot water, electricity and Internet ( Soon to be a basic need ), at rate that <i>relate</i>
to their basic income percentage.  And a promise they wont be kicked out unless they do things silly.<p>And if all these are too government related, we need technology to built public housing cheaply, and efficiently in short space of time. And open up the cost structure to let people know they are not being ripped off. Property market is an monopoly that derails much of our society.