Backed by Google, SF nonprofits to give unhoused families $1K a month

A pair of San Francisco nonprofits will provide more than 200 recently homeless Bay Area families with monthly cash payments as part of a guaranteed basic-income program that organizers say they hope will shape local, state and national homelessness policies.

Hamilton Families and Compass Family Services will run the five-year program known as It All Adds Up , providing 225 randomly selected Bay Area families each year with $1,000 monthly payments for 12 months. Google’s philanthropic arm is providing a large portion of the funding, and New York University’s Housing Solutions Lab at the Furman Center will study the program’s effects.

“The results are going to be really important and hopefully moving us in the direction of ‘this is not just a study, but this is kind of the way our system is going to work,’” Erica Kirsch, the CEO of Compass Family Services, told The Examiner.

A control group of another 225 families will be given $50 per month for a year. Eligible families must have participated in a rapid-rehousing program provided by Compass Family Services or Hamilton Families, and they must also not be receiving supplemental security income.

Kyriell Noon, the CEO of Hamilton Families, said participating in the pilot program with Google “just seemed like a value-add to an existing program and the thing that might help families really achieve the kind of housing stability that we hope for them.”

Guaranteed basic-income programs, which provide individuals with regular no-strings-attached cash payments to assist with living expenses, go back hundreds of years but have recently sprouted in popularity, according to researchers with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There are currently more than 150 pilots nationwide, with California launching its first-ever state-funded pilot programs last November.

A 2021 National Low Income Housing Coaltion report found that a San Francisco household would need to have four minimum-wage jobs to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

Noon said that families participating in It All Adds Up have used the money to supplement their existing budgets, change careers or pick up vocational training. He said that close to 40% of the families already participating in the program have used their stipends for food. Another 25% used the money for household items or clothing, with 10% using the cash for utility payments.

“Once a family falls through the safety net, that is a very expensive proposition — not only in terms of dollars but in terms of mental health, physical health, early child development and all of that,” Kirsch said. “So it’s a small investment for a pretty amazing outcome.”

Compass Family Services previously worked on a basic-income pilot program in 2021 with Wells Fargo. The company provided $350 per month for six months to 13 low-income families with children who were enrolled at the Compass Children’s Center.

“We saw families doing some pretty remarkable things — and it wasn’t even that much money — including a couple of families that contributed to their own savings,” Kirsch told The Examiner.

Noon said that basic-income programs enable participants to reach a point of security at which they do not have to face dilemmas such as deciding between paying for rent or food.

“It allows for people to not have to make terrible choices about how to use their resources,” he said. “It gives them more options.”

Justin Steele, the director of Americas for Google’s philanthropic arm, said in a statement that “[we’ve] consistently seen that putting cash directly in the hands of families in need provides the flexibility they need to build the life they want.”

“Direct cash giving is a promising new approach to homelessness,” he said.

Noon said that participants using the money to secure housing is a critical component of the undertaking, but the hope is that guaranteed basic income can ultimately serve as a stepping stone to broader financial security.

“If you take it one step further, it’s really about ending poverty and intergenerational cycles of poverty for families who’ve been in it for quite some time,” he said.

The evaporation of pandemic assistance programs has put a lot more stress on families while simultaneously intensifying their needs, Kirsch said. She called the basic-income program a “win-win,” primarily because it has the potential to enhance the economy . Markets and businesses would be bolstered by consumers who now had newfound or additional spending power, she said.

“We owe it to the families that we’re trying to help to be innovative, be creative, come up with solutions and not shy away from doing absolutely everything we can do,” Kirsch said.