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

Join The Transient, our daily e-newsletter that retains readers up to speed on essentially the most important Texas news.

Austin would be the first main Texas city to make use of native tax dollars to provide money to low-income families to maintain them housed as the cost of residing skyrockets in the capital metropolis.

Underneath a yearlong, $1 million pilot program that cleared a key Austin Metropolis Council vote Thursday, the city will ship month-to-month checks of $1,000 to 85 needy households at risk of shedding their houses — an try and insulate low-income residents from Austin’s more and more costly housing market and stop more folks from changing into homeless.

“We will find people moments before they end up on our streets that stop them, divert them from being there,” Mayor Steve Adler said at a press conference Thursday morning. “That will be not only great for them, it might be wise and good for the taxpayers within the city of Austin because it will be so much inexpensive to divert someone from homelessness than to help them find a home as soon as they’re on our streets.”

Advert

Eight Austin Metropolis Council members voted Thursday to determine the “assured earnings” pilot program and contract with a California nonprofit to run it.

Austin joins not less than 28 U.S. cities, like Los Angeles, Chicago and Pittsburgh, which have tried some form of assured revenue. Regionally, the thought came out of efforts to rework how the city tackles public security in the wake of protests over police brutality in 2020.

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

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

Ad

Metropolis officers have floated some potentialities regarding who ought to qualify for assist: residents who have an eviction case filed towards them or have trouble paying their utility payments, as well as folks already experiencing homelessness.

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, some council members voiced concerns concerning the relative lack of particulars about the program and questioned whether or not it was a good idea for Austin to make use of local tax dollars to fund the program, somewhat than letting the federal government or nonprofits take the lead.

“I consider that we do have to invest in people and their basic needs, however I’m not sure that that is the suitable approach right this moment,” council member Alison Alter mentioned at Thursday’s meeting before voting against the measure.

Brion Oaks, the city’s chief equity officer, informed city officials in a memo that the Urban Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C., will assist measure the program’s affect by components like participants’ monetary stability, stress ranges and general wellness over the course of receiving the funds.

Ad

Preliminary findings from a similar pilot program confirmed some promising results. UpTogether, the California nonprofit that may run the Austin program, ran a separate assured income program funded by private 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 stated contributors used the money for bills like lease and mortgage funds, baby care, gas and groceries.

Some were in a position to increase their financial savings, more than half of recipients slashed their debt by 75% and greater than a third eliminated their household debt, the nonprofit said.

In line with Austin’s Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, the city has more than 3,100 people experiencing homelessness. A local ban on most evictions in the course of the pandemic saved the variety of eviction case fillings low in contrast with different major Texas cities, but that number has exploded since the ban ended last 12 months.

Advert

Assured income may be one option to put a dent in those problems, proponents mentioned.

“This is about preventing displacement, preventing eviction and ensuring that our households are in a position to stay in their house, that we've got 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 information organization that's funded in part by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no function in the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full list of them right here.

Help mission-driven journalism flourish in Texas. The Texas Tribune relies on reader help to continue delivering information 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 May 5 and also you’ll assist unlock a $10K match. Give and double your impression immediately.

Ad

Clarification, May 6, 2022: This story has been updated to mirror that Austin is the primary Texas city to make use of local tax dollars for a “guaranteed income” program, and that other Texas cities have experimented with similar packages utilizing different types of funding.