Receiving the cash is also empowering. “There’s a wide body of research that if you give someone a larger sum of cash it triggers long-term thinking,” says Williams. Or as Ray puts it, ”that energy of believing in myself again.” The effect is: “These people trusted me. Let me prove to them that I can be successful,” Ray says. 

Source: Vancouver Gave Homeless People $5,800. It Changed Their Lives. /via Keeping it Integer

See also: What happened when people in this upstate New York town started getting monthly $500 checks and The mathematical case against blaming people for their misfortune