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

Join The Temporary, our daily publication that retains readers up to the mark on the most important Texas information.

Austin would be the first main Texas city to use local tax dollars to provide cash to low-income families to keep them housed as the price of residing skyrockets within the capital city.

Below a yearlong, $1 million pilot program that cleared a key Austin City Council vote Thursday, town will send month-to-month checks of $1,000 to 85 needy households vulnerable to shedding their homes — an attempt to insulate low-income residents from Austin’s increasingly expensive housing market and stop more people from becoming homeless.

“We can discover individuals moments before they find yourself on our streets that prevent them, divert them from being there,” Mayor Steve Adler said at a press convention Thursday morning. “That might be not only wonderful for them, it could be sensible and good for the taxpayers within the metropolis of Austin because it is going to be rather a lot less expensive to divert someone from homelessness than to help them discover a dwelling as soon as they’re on our streets.”

Advert

Eight Austin Metropolis Council members voted Thursday to ascertain the “guaranteed income” 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, that have tried some type of assured revenue. Regionally, the thought got here out of efforts to rework how the city tackles public safety in the wake of protests over police brutality in 2020.

Other Texas metro areas have experimented with assured earnings programs in the course of the pandemic. Programs in San Antonio and El Paso County have despatched common payments to low-income households utilizing a mix of federal stimulus dollars and charitable contributions. Austin is believed to have the only program absolutely funded by local taxpayers.

Austin officials are figuring out how exactly this system will work and which families will obtain the money. Austinites who qualify received’t have restrictions on how they'll spend the money — but the idea is that they’ll use it to pay family costs like lease, utilities, transportation and groceries.

Advert

City officers have floated some prospects regarding who ought to qualify for help: residents who've an eviction case filed in opposition to them or have trouble paying their utility payments, as well as individuals already experiencing homelessness.

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, some council members voiced considerations in regards to the relative lack of details about this system and questioned whether or not it was a good suggestion for Austin to use native tax dollars to fund this system, fairly than letting the federal authorities or nonprofits take the lead.

“I imagine that we do must invest in folks and their primary needs, however I’m unsure that that is the fitting method at present,” council member Alison Alter stated at Thursday’s assembly earlier than voting in opposition to the measure.

Brion Oaks, town’s chief fairness officer, instructed metropolis officials in a memo that the City Institute, a nonprofit assume tank based mostly in Washington, D.C., will help measure the program’s influence by taking a look at components like contributors’ financial stability, stress ranges and general wellness over the course of receiving the funds.

Ad

Preliminary findings from the same pilot program showed some promising outcomes. UpTogether, the California nonprofit that may run the Austin program, ran a separate guaranteed earnings program funded by private dollars in Austin and Georgetown that ended in March, the nonprofit said in a press release Thursday. That program gave 173 families $1,000 a month for a year, and the nonprofit stated members used the cash for bills like hire and mortgage payments, youngster care, gas and groceries.

Some had been able to boost their savings, more than half of recipients slashed their debt by 75% and more than a third eradicated their family debt, the nonprofit stated.

Based on Austin’s Ending Neighborhood Homelessness Coalition, town has greater than 3,100 folks experiencing homelessness. A neighborhood ban on most evictions in the course of the pandemic stored the number of eviction case fillings low in contrast with other major Texas cities, but that number has exploded for the reason that ban ended last 12 months.

Ad

Guaranteed revenue could also be one method to put a dent in those problems, proponents stated.

“This is about stopping displacement, preventing eviction and making certain that our families are able to keep in their dwelling, that now we have that stability,” council member Vanessa Fuentes mentioned.

Disclosure: Steve Adler, a former Texas Tribune board chair, has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that is funded partly by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Assist mission-driven journalism flourish in Texas. The Texas Tribune relies on reader support to proceed delivering news that informs Texans and engages with them. Donate now to affix as a Texas Tribune member. Plus, give monthly or yearly now through May 5 and you’ll help unlock a $10K match. Give and double your impression at present.

Advert

Clarification, May 6, 2022: This story has been up to date to replicate that Austin is the primary Texas metropolis to use native tax dollars for a “guaranteed income” program, and that different Texas cities have experimented with related programs utilizing different types of funding.