Imagine if every citizen if our beloved nation were guaranteed somewhere to live and food as an absolute right. What if we had instead of the dole social housing. This housing would be the bare minimum, nothing fancy but it would be adequate. You could choose to live in it if you wanted. There would be no cost to living here. The social housing would be centralised in certain areas to allow the easy and effective distribution of free food. Three solid meals a day, again nothing fancy but varied enough to easily sustain people and to cater for for various religious and personal diet preferences. A limited amount of free clothing could also be provided to everyone each year.
Nobody would be forced to live in such a manner but it could be compared to the current system of living on the dole where people given their circumstances would be dependent on their circumstances be left with little other choice. People might also choose to avail of living in standardised social accommodation to save up to buy their own house. This would be a much quicker process than trying to save whilst renting and could stimulate the property market in this manner. Private rented accommodation would also still be an option for people if for what ever reason they didn't want to live in social government housing the most likely being that the standard accommodation while adequate is only just that. Adequate not desirable. People might also choose to live in this type of accommodation to pursue their own hobbies such as art, music or literature for example which whilst it is not always realistic to expect to be able make a living from these pursuits they can be personally very rewarding. Free from financial pressures they might be able to produce some truly great work doing what they love or perhaps achieve some level of personal achievement or fulfillment.
Such a system might cost quite a bit of money to set up in the short term but might well yield savings in the longer term as it would eliminate the need for dole money and especially the likes of rent supplement payments being provided to private landlords. More importantly it could eliminate food poverty, homelessness and many other problems.
