Evanston is making changes to its guaranteed income program, which since 2022 has provided nearly 200 financially struggling individuals and families with unconditional cash payments of $500 a month for a set period of time.
When the city received $900,000 in federal funds for the second round of the program in March 2024, only 99 families eligible for the 150 slots applied to receive money.
Now, with more than $300,000 left unclaimed for 51 remaining spots, councilmembers voted, at their April 27 meeting, to expand the program’s existing eligibility requirements, before the availability of the funds is set to expire at the end of the calendar year.
The initiative is funded through American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars, Northwestern University and the Evanston Community Fund.
Per City Council’s approval in a 6-3 vote, qualifying residents will now include those aged 55 or older, along with households with children in the second grade or below.
The funds will also be open to the entire city moving forward, rather than specific census tracts.
When the second round of funding was initially distributed, qualifying families had to be in census tract 8092 (a majority of 5th Ward residents) and living at or below 185% of the federal poverty line, with a child in the second grade or younger.
For this expansion, residents will still need to have a household income at or below 185% of the federal poverty line to qualify.
Along with increasing the overall demographic scope of who will be able to receive the funding, Council voted unanimously to double the number of open spots from the original 51 to 102 households.
Each household will receive $500 per month for a six-month period, a reduction from the initial $1,000 per month plan.
Evanston’s Policy and Intergovernmental Affairs Manager Allison Leipsiger clarified on Monday that adding households would be a fail-safe way to reach more people, even if less impactful overall.
“$500 versus $1,000 a month for a short period of time is not enough to live on [to] stay at home…” Leipsiger acknowledged, but “if your car breaks down, you don’t lose your job because you can’t get to work.
“It gives you that cushion,” she told Council members.
The city’s first round of funding targeted three populations of 50 people living at or below 250% of the federal poverty line: individuals aged 18-24, individuals 65 and older and undocumented residents.
Those 150 total recipients received $500 a month for a year, according to Leipsiger.
When asked by Ald. Krissie Harris, 2nd, on how the city collects data on recipients’ use of their funds, Leipsiger confirmed that it doesn’t.
“A foundational aspect of a guaranteed income program, and a promise we made, is that we don’t track how each person spends their money. That’s what guaranteed income is,” Leipsiger said.
“You know what’s best for your family, how you need to spend your money, and it’s the idea to take away the sort of government overreach into dictating what [residents] can spend their money on.”
Leipsiger added that the city does possess “aggregate data” from the first round of funding that indicated a majority of recipients spent funds on housing, clothing and food.
“It’s pretty consistent across the research that we see nationally about how people tend to spend their money,” she added.
But Harris pushed back, advocating for the need to conduct some sort of financial literacy training to help advise recipients on the best use of program dollars.
“At some point there are hoops you have to jump through. The city had to jump through them to get this money,” Harris said. “We had to do homework, we had to fill out paperwork. We had to subscribe and do certain things.”
“If you’re receiving money monthly, to me, to say you need to do some financial literacy, it only improves that person and what they can [and] should be [doing] and how to figure things out.”
With a pending Dec. 31 expiration date and at least six months needed to distribute the funds, Council members ultimately did not vote to add additional educational requirements to this round.
“What we know about the research is that people who participate in the guaranteed income program typically have better employment outcomes,” and that they, “don’t want to stay at home,” Leipsiger said.
Ald. Bobby Burns, 5th, added at the start of the Council’s discussion that he believed the way the memorandum was framed made it mistakenly seem like the city had “failed, in a sense,” to award the rest of the funding to 51 families.
“I don’t think the city knew that there were 150 families that were qualified, but I think it’s a success that we were able to help 99 families. I just wanted folks to understand that,” Burns said.
Leipsiger said that the city relies on census data and American Community Survey (ACS) data to estimate how many people they thought the funding would cover, and “made their best guess.”
“We know, ACS data is iffy at best, and the smaller the location, like a census tract, the worse the data is,” she added.
“We were only able to enroll 99 of the 150 families that this Council allocated ARPA dollars for, so we would like to fulfill the rest of that promise.”
But some Evanston residents argue that the city overlooked eligible applicants in earlier rounds of funding.
“I have heard directly from Black seniors in Evanston, residents who have lived here for decades, paid into this city, applied for assistance and were not selected for the guaranteed income program,” said Meleika Gardner, a current 3rd Ward resident.
Gardner told the Pioneer Press it, “raises a fundamental question of access and accountability.”
While the second round of funding was specifically allocated for families residing in census tract 8092 who met federal poverty levels and had children in the second grade or younger, earlier rounds of the program proved more inclusive.
“When longtime residents, particularly Black seniors, are reporting that they applied and were not selected, it is reasonable for the public to ask for a clearer understanding of how recipients were chosen across all groups,” she said.
And why, Gardner added, have city officials “held onto $300,000 for over a year that was designated to support residents through the program?”
Leipsiger did not immediately respond to a follow-up Pioneer Press request for comment regarding the timeframe of distribution.
While Council members did not specify on Monday when residents may begin applying for the expanded program, Leipsiger noted that the money will need to be distributed in time for the six-month window, which would commence no later than July.
