Implementing a Cash Grant Program for the Homeless in Metro Manila, The Philippines

Abstract

As recently as July 2012, the Philippine government took a challenge to develop programs for homeless families and applied a “social technology design” to reach the hard-core poor, with a program named Modified Conditional Cash Transfer (MCCT). MCCT targets homeless street families (HSFs) with children under 14 years of age and aims to provide a complete package of assistance including not only education and health but also shelter assistance with a view to improving their accessibility to other social services and economic opportunities. How is this program being implemented? Could this be a solution to the iterant and persistent problem of homelessness in the Philippines? Are there any lessons to be learned for improving the current program? Can this be replicated in other cities and countries with similar problems? This chapter will examine these questions by looking at the policy process of the program, with particular attention to the particulars of the program design, key actors (politicians, public officials/department bureaucrats, nongovernmental organizations, and the homeless) and collaboration among them, and their respective resources including expertise of the collaboration participants. We use the policy process approach which is a heuristic for simplifying and understanding the complex world of numerous policies. The approach helps us identify key features of the policy world in a way that provides an intuitive understanding of it. The chapter concludes by describing how the Philippine government is implementing the MCCT program, drawing upon the multiple theories of the policy process that since the 1970s have been developed and applied in explaining the complex policy world.