Austin turns into the primary Texas city to experiment with ‘guaranteed income’

Sign up for The Temporary, our daily publication that keeps readers up to the mark on the most essential Texas news.

Austin would be the first major Texas city to make use of local tax dollars to provide cash to low-income families to maintain them housed as the price of residing skyrockets in the capital metropolis.

Under a yearlong, $1 million pilot program that cleared a key Austin City Council vote Thursday, the town will ship monthly checks of $1,000 to 85 needy households vulnerable to dropping their houses — an try and insulate low-income residents from Austin’s more and more expensive housing market and prevent more folks from becoming homeless.

“We will find folks moments before they find yourself on our streets that stop them, divert them from being there,” Mayor Steve Adler stated at a press convention Thursday morning. “That will be not only wonderful for them, it could be sensible and smart for the taxpayers within the city of Austin because will probably be loads less expensive to divert someone from homelessness than to help them find a dwelling once they’re on our streets.”

Ad

Eight Austin City Council members voted Thursday to ascertain the “guaranteed revenue” pilot program and contract with a California nonprofit to run it.

Austin joins at least 28 U.S. cities, like Los Angeles, Chicago and Pittsburgh, which have tried some type of guaranteed earnings. Regionally, the thought got here out of efforts to remodel how town tackles public safety in the wake of protests over police brutality in 2020.

Other Texas metro areas have experimented with guaranteed income applications throughout the pandemic. Programs in San Antonio and El Paso County have despatched regular payments to low-income households utilizing a combination of federal stimulus dollars and charitable contributions. Austin is believed to have the only program absolutely funded by native taxpayers.

Austin officers are figuring out how exactly the program will work and which households will receive the cash. Austinites who qualify gained’t have restrictions on how they will spend the money — but the thought is that they’ll use it to pay household prices like lease, utilities, transportation and groceries.

Advert

City officers have floated some prospects relating to who should qualify for assist: residents who have an eviction case filed in opposition to them or have trouble paying their utility bills, in addition to folks already experiencing homelessness.

Forward of Thursday’s vote, some council members voiced considerations in regards to the relative lack of particulars about the program and questioned whether it was a good idea for Austin to make use of native tax dollars to fund the program, rather than letting the federal government or nonprofits take the lead.

“I believe that we do need to invest in individuals and their primary wants, however I’m not sure that that is the precise means today,” council member Alison Alter said at Thursday’s assembly before voting against the measure.

Brion Oaks, town’s chief fairness officer, informed metropolis officials in a memo that the Urban Institute, a nonprofit suppose tank primarily based in Washington, D.C., will help measure the program’s influence by components like members’ financial stability, stress levels and general wellness over the course of receiving the funds.

Ad

Preliminary findings from an identical pilot program confirmed some promising outcomes. UpTogether, the California nonprofit that will run the Austin program, ran a separate guaranteed revenue program funded by personal dollars in Austin and Georgetown that led to March, the nonprofit stated in a statement Thursday. That program gave 173 families $1,000 a month for a year, and the nonprofit mentioned members used the money for expenses like hire and mortgage payments, child care, gas and groceries.

Some have been able to boost their financial savings, greater than half of recipients slashed their debt by 75% and more than a third eliminated their household debt, the nonprofit stated.

In accordance with Austin’s Ending Group Homelessness Coalition, town has more than 3,100 individuals experiencing homelessness. A local ban on most evictions throughout the pandemic stored the variety of eviction case fillings low compared with other main Texas cities, but that number has exploded because the ban ended last yr.

Advert

Guaranteed income may be one approach to put a dent in those issues, proponents said.

“That is about stopping displacement, preventing eviction and making certain that our families are capable of keep of their house, that now we have that stability,” council member Vanessa Fuentes mentioned.

Disclosure: Steve Adler, a former Texas Tribune board chair, has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded partially by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Monetary supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Find a full record of them here.

Help mission-driven journalism flourish in Texas. The Texas Tribune depends on reader assist to continue delivering news that informs Texans and engages with them. Donate now to affix as a Texas Tribune member. Plus, give month-to-month or yearly now by way of May 5 and also you’ll help unlock a $10K match. Give and double your impression right this moment.

Advert

Clarification, Might 6, 2022: This story has been updated to mirror that Austin is the first Texas metropolis to make use of local tax dollars for a “assured earnings” program, and that other Texas cities have experimented with comparable programs utilizing different kinds of funding.