New South Bay anti-poverty experiment launches
For many struggling South Bay families, getting an extra $1,000 a month with no strings attached would seem too good to be true.
But for 150 households lucky enough to be chosen for a new guaranteed income experiment in Santa Clara County, that's exactly what's happening.
The program targets families with children under 18 who are homeless or on the brink of homelessness — they could be at risk of losing their home because they can't afford the rent, for example, or living crammed into too-tight quarters with other families. The payments are part of a broad trend picking up steam throughout the Bay Area as nonprofits, cities, counties and even state legislators advocate for and increasingly experiment with programs that put cash directly into the hands of people in need.
“More money allows families to be able to pay their rent or pay their bills or do whatever they need to be able to do,” said Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home, one of the organizations spearheading the project funded by private donations. “We trust families to make good decisions for themselves.”
The guaranteed income model bucks the trend of traditional assistance programs that give people vouchers for one specific purpose — housing or food, for example — or help people only if they complete certain requirements, such as looking for work or getting sober. Guaranteed income has spread over the past few years, but so far only in small-scale, shortlived pilot programs. Advocates hope these initial test programs will prove guaranteed income helps participants get back on their feet so they can eventually be scaled to the state or federal level.
This week, the state announced that it will give out more than $25 million to fund seven guaranteed
income pilots — including in San Francisco. In all, the effort will provide monthly payments of between $600 and $1,200 to at least 1,975 Californians.
Oakland last year started giving $500 per month to 300 families and then doubled the program to 600 families in February. Marin
County is giving $1,000 a month to 124 low-income women, and Santa Clara County launched a guaranteed income program specifically for people leaving the foster care system. South San Francisco last year started sending out $500 monthly checks to 150 low-income families, and Alameda and Mountain View recently approved similar programs.
Critics sometimes worry that no-strings-attached payments may discourage people from working and becoming self-sufficient. But that risk becomes much less when talking about programs that target extremely low-income households and give out relatively small sums of money, said Matt Zwolinski, director of the University of San Diego's Center for Ethics, Economics and Public Policy.
“The idea that people are going to drop out of the labor market altogether and just live high on their basic income is pretty implausible, especially if you're talking about the Bay Area,” he said.
Data from a 2019 guaranteed income program in Stockton found that fulltime employment by participants actually increased by 12% in the program's first year.
The new program in Santa Clara County will last for two years, and the results will be studied by the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. The $5.8 million program is funded by donations from organizations including Destination: Home, Google. org, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and Sobrato Philanthropies.
Money is expected to start flowing to families in December.
Destination: Home found participants for the program by combing the county's waitlist for housing and other services. The ¡Sí Se Puede! Collective identified additional families from San Jose's Mayfair neighborhood.
“Through this project we can support families vulnerable to homelessness by giving them cash with no conditions,” Gabriel Hernandez, director of the collective, said in a news release. “With their participation, in two years, we hope to see how guaranteed income benefits families and advocate for more programs to support more families.”