Business Insider recently reported on the results of the Austin Guaranteed Income Pilot, the first program of its kind in Texas, to provide 135 low-income families with $1,000 a month for one year. Participants were able to spend the money however they wanted, and after the experiment ended last August, participants reported spending more than half of it on housing.
A report by the Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., found that participants in the Austin program “made their homes significantly more secure than they were when they enrolled, whereas other low-income Texans had less security over the same period.” “The safety of housing has decreased slightly,'' he said. ” According to an Insider article by Kenneth Niemeyer.
Many other cities across the country, including Baltimore and Denver, are also “experimenting basic income projects to address rising homelessness and support their most vulnerable residents,” Niemeyer reported. That's what it means. These programs also reported improved housing security for recipients.
Despite these results, guaranteed income programs remain controversial. Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston, launched a guaranteed income program called Uplift Harris earlier this month to provide $500 a month to low-income residents, but state Sen. Paul Bettencourt wrote to the state's attorney general. and asked them to file a declaration. The program is unconstitutional, based on a provision in the Texas Constitution that says Congress cannot authorize counties to use public funds to assist individuals.
“The county's attorney told the Houston Chronicle that Bettencourt was 'more focused on political gamesmanship and weaponizing government agencies than on improving the lives of the people of Harris County.'” writes Niemeyer.
