Efforts to launch a guaranteed basic income pilot program are underway in Fresno.
On Saturday morning, a group of 30 El Dorado community members came out to share their ideas about what a guaranteed basic income program should look like in Fresno.
The listening session was organized by members of the newly formed Center for Community Voices based at Fresno State University, who were joined by Heather Brown, chief administrative officer of the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission, and the El Dorado Park Community Development Corporation.
The local coalition said they are building a plan to develop a guaranteed income pilot program that will select 200 urban and rural families to receive $500 a month for 12 to 18 months.
But, first, the group said they wanted community input to take to potential funders of the pilot.
“Historically, the way that we confront problems is not by letting the community lead,” said Amber Crowell, professor of sociology at Fresno State and co-director of Center for Community Voices, the group that’s developing the guaranteed basic income pilot.
“Our goal is to bring residents into the conversation,” said Crowell.
Most of the attendees stressed that paying rent was their biggest concern.
A Guaranteed Basic Income pilot is coming to Fresno
Guaranteed basic income is an anti-poverty program where selected residents receive monthly, unrestricted cash payments to spend as they see fit.
“It won’t solve all the issues,” said Crowell. “But it will definitely help families get a little more stable.”
Crowell, Andy Levine, and Matthew Jendian are directors of the Center for Community Voices and Fresno State faculty. The priority for the group is to develop a guaranteed basic income program in Fresno in partnership with other community and philanthropic organizations such as Fresno EOC and the Fresno Metro Black Chamber of Commerce.
Fresno’s coalition is drawing upon the reported success of the initial guaranteed income pilot led by former Mayor Michael Tubbs in Stockton. California has set aside $35 million to fund local guaranteed basic income pilots across the state. The pilot found that most people spent the money on basic necessities such as rent, food, and transportation.
Levine said that different welfare programs and social assistance programs have “way too many requirements to jump through and even limitations in terms of how to access it.” He said this is why the rental assistance dollars have been so hard to distribute. “People don’t know how to get to it and don’t know how to jump through all the hoops,” said Levine.
The group plans to apply for the state funding to support the pilot, which they estimate will cost between $1.8 to $2.4 million for the direct checks. They’re also looking for private funding from philanthropic sources.
“We’re not just kind of waiting around to see you know if we get this $2 million (from the state) to be able to do this particular project,” said Brown in a September editorial meeting with The Bee.
Brown also said that Fresno EOC is looking at other ways to insert guaranteed basic income into other programming. They’re including guaranteed basic income elements into their grant applications for ongoing programs, such as a Head Start program in Huron.
Residents concerned about rising rents across Fresno
During Saturday morning’s listening session, residents asked questions on how such a program would work, who would be prioritized, and if it would impact their current benefits. They also made suggestions to the group, such as considerations for the elderly and disabled.
Most residents that came out on Saturday said that the biggest issue on their minds was rent.
Fresno has seen one of the largest increases in rent prices over the past year. As of August 2020, the Fresno area’s year-over-year rise of more than 19% in median rent — the point at which half of the units cost more and half cost less — is the largest percentage increase among 16 California metro areas.
El Dorado neighborhood resident LaToya Rowe came out to the listening session because of “the idea that somebody cares about our community and wants to gather information to possibly make a change.”
The widow and mother said that she lost her customer service job during the pandemic. She said she’s concerned about when and how the local declaration of emergency will be lifted early next year, especially since she’s already started seeing her neighbors get evicted.
While she’s been able to access rental assistance, she said she’d had a hard time finding a job despite having applied to over 60-70 positions. She said she’s worried she will eventually get evicted, too.
“I’m not one of these people staying at home waiting for a check,” said Rowe. “I’ve worked all my life.”
For now, she’s working part-time as a volunteer receptionist at the Wesley United Methodist Church.
Levine said that almost everyone he surveyed on Saturday said that their priority was paying for rent. The residents also said that a $500 per month payment would cover either “most” or “all” of their gap between monthly income versus monthly expenses.
The Center for Community Voices plans to hold upcoming listening sessions in southwest Fresno, southeast Fresno, and a rural part of the county. They hope to launch the pilot project in early 2022.
Want to share your thoughts?
Fresnans that are interested to share their thoughts on a guaranteed basic income program can reach out to the Center for Community Voices team directly to provide ideas and feedback:
Amber Crowell
Andy Levine
Matthew Jendian
Melissa Montalvo is a reporter with The Fresno Bee and a Report for America corps member. This article is part of The California Divide, a collaboration among newsrooms examining income inequity and economic survival in California.
___
(c)2021 The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.)
Visit The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.) at www.fresnobee.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
the west coast is dead to me.
time to wall it off from the rest of america.
“The wages of sin is death”,,,, the reward of a sinful life without work and wages is as deadly to the human spirit as a brain dead President is to a nation. They would turn the American People of CREATION into THE PEOPLE of CONSUMPTION until every crumb and morsel of American strength and integrity is consumed to the last citizen and our country is no more.
“Eat of the fruit of the tree of our socialist knowledge and you shall become as god”,,,,over an American wasteland of cime, poverty and want.
Just pushing more & more Socialist/Communist ideas and propaganda with no end in sight. What the hell happened to America?
TIME for the big quake, to hit, and SWALLOW THAT ENTIRE COAST, whole…
Proverbs 3:12 –“ For the LORD corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights.” He takes from the unrighteous and gives to those he loves and whom love him.
Leftist 13:666 – “For the State enables dependency, as a father who despises and spoils his children whom he allows to run wild and undisciplined, because THE STATE delights in their social dependency upon the state, as true believers depend on their god, THE STATE, ever taking from the righteous and honest to empower and give to the unrighteous, undisciplined, unlawful, and lazy, whose social creation in dependency empowers the State over the people, and their leaders over all.”
Guaranteed incomes is just one of their tickets to their Collective Coliseums of crime, entertainment, and sacrifice of the human spirit to excel, where the crocodile eventually comes for all,,,,even the leaders themselves.
Guaranteed basic income is an anti-poverty program where selected black and illegal immigrants residents receive monthly, unrestricted cash payments to spend as they see fit.
This is just another Democrat Party’s intensions to sell their Socialist, Communist Dictatorship.
If one is dependent on a government for their existence, then they will serve and bow down to that government.
AND You can bet, t will be ONLY BLACKS and latinos/asians, who get it.. NOT WHITEs.
PLUS THEY WILL STILL receive their already HIGH EBT, WIC and Welfare payments too.
Take from the people that work hard and give the welfare crowd / parasites perpetual income. You then buy the votes. The definition of the destruction of society is liberalism / no personal responsibility.
The treachery of the traitorous, socialist Democrat Party know no bounds.
What exactly is your fair share of
what someone else has worked for??
2 Thessalonians 3:10
“The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”
COMMENT
Especially when the TOP 30% or so of earners, PAY OVER 90% of the Entire nation’s tax burden already.. WHILE THE “bottom 55%, DON’T pay anything.