Austin turns into the first Texas city to experiment with ‘assured income’

Sign up for The Transient, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to the mark on essentially the most essential Texas information.

Austin will be the first main Texas metropolis to make use of native tax dollars to offer cash to low-income households to keep them housed as the cost of living skyrockets within the capital metropolis.

Below a yearlong, $1 million pilot program that cleared a key Austin Metropolis Council vote Thursday, the city will send month-to-month checks of $1,000 to 85 needy households prone to dropping their homes — an attempt to insulate low-income residents from Austin’s increasingly expensive housing market and forestall extra individuals from changing into homeless.

“We can discover people moments earlier than they find yourself on our streets that stop them, divert them from being there,” Mayor Steve Adler mentioned at a press convention Thursday morning. “That might be not solely great for them, it might be smart and good for the taxpayers in the city of Austin as a result of it is going to be loads less expensive to divert someone from homelessness than to assist them find a home once they’re on our streets.”

Ad

Eight Austin Metropolis Council members voted Thursday to establish the “assured earnings” 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 concept came out of efforts to rework how town tackles public security within the wake of protests over police brutality in 2020.

Different Texas metro areas have experimented with assured revenue applications through the pandemic. Applications in San Antonio and El Paso County have sent common payments to low-income households using a mix of federal stimulus dollars and charitable contributions. Austin is believed to have the only program totally funded by local taxpayers.

Austin officials are understanding how precisely the program will work and which families will obtain the cash. Austinites who qualify gained’t have restrictions on how they can spend the cash — but the idea is that they’ll use it to pay family costs like lease, utilities, transportation and groceries.

Ad

City officials have floated some potentialities relating to who ought to qualify for help: residents who have an eviction case filed against them or have trouble paying their utility payments, in addition to folks already experiencing homelessness.

Forward of Thursday’s vote, some council members voiced concerns about the relative lack of details about the program and questioned whether or not it was a good suggestion for Austin to use local tax dollars to fund the program, rather than letting the federal authorities or nonprofits take the lead.

“I believe that we do have to put money into individuals and their fundamental wants, however I’m undecided that that is the precise method today,” council member Alison Alter mentioned at Thursday’s assembly earlier than voting against the measure.

Brion Oaks, town’s chief fairness officer, instructed metropolis officials in a memo that the City Institute, a nonprofit suppose tank primarily based in Washington, D.C., will help measure the program’s affect by taking a look at factors like participants’ monetary stability, stress levels and total wellness over the course of receiving the funds.

Advert

Preliminary findings from an analogous pilot program showed some promising results. UpTogether, the California nonprofit that may run the Austin program, ran a separate assured earnings program funded by non-public dollars in Austin and Georgetown that resulted in March, the nonprofit said in a press release Thursday. That program gave 173 households $1,000 a month for a yr, and the nonprofit said contributors used the cash for expenses like rent and mortgage payments, little one care, gasoline and groceries.

Some have been in a position to increase their financial savings, more than half of recipients slashed their debt by 75% and greater than a 3rd eradicated their family debt, the nonprofit mentioned.

In accordance with Austin’s Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, the town has greater than 3,100 people experiencing homelessness. A local ban on most evictions throughout the pandemic kept the variety of eviction case fillings low in contrast with different main Texas cities, however that number has exploded since the ban ended last year.

Advert

Assured earnings may be one technique to put a dent in those problems, proponents stated.

“This is about preventing displacement, stopping eviction and ensuring that our households are in a position to stay in their residence, that we have now that stability,” council member Vanessa Fuentes stated.

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 partially by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no position in the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a complete record of them right here.

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

Ad

Clarification, Could 6, 2022: This story has been up to date to replicate that Austin is the first Texas city to make use of native tax dollars for a “guaranteed income” program, and that different Texas cities have experimented with comparable programs utilizing other forms of funding.