GROUP TO GIVE $500 PAYMENTS TO LOW-INCOME FAMILIES

Guaranteed income effort aims to reduce poverty in disadvantaged areas

A local coalition will be providing $500 monthly stipends to 150 families in some of San Diego County’s most disadvantaged communities.

Under the effort, known as the guaranteed income program, families who reside in areas with high rates of child poverty will receive the money for two years to use as they see fit to meet immediate needs.

“No strings attached is really straightforward: When folks get the money, they choose what they want to spend it on,” said Khea Pollard, director of San Diego for Every Child, the coalition spearheading the program.

San Diego for Every Child launched in January 2020 and aims to reduce child poverty by 50 percent over the next decade. The coalition, founded by Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-San Diego, and housed under the Jewish Family Service of San Diego, consists of youth advocates, community leaders and agencies such as the Center on Policy Initiatives, the YMCA Childcare Resource Services of San Diego County and the Parent Institute for Quality Education.

Of the county’s children age 12 and younger, 40 percent lived below 200 percent of the federal poverty level in 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The data means that a family of four struggled to make ends meet with under $26,000 annually.

The guaranteed income program targets neighborhoods where families not only were impacted the most by the pandemic but also had previously struggled financially. Those areas include ZIP codes 92114 (Encanto/San Diego), 92139 (Paradise Hills), 91950 (National City) and 92173 (San Ysidro).

“While realizing everyone at large has been impacted by COVID-19, these communities in these target areas were suffering before with lack of access to food, lack of access to child care, housing, those sorts of issues that are prevalent in these low-income communities of color,” Pollard said.

San Diego for Every Child has been tracking local child poverty lev