Harris County, Texas, officials will have alerted which low-income applicants have been chosen for its pilot basic income program by Monday.
The Uplift Harris program received roughly 83,000 applicants, officials announced earlier this month, and the county would notify all those selected to participate in the pilot program through Monday, according to the Houston Chronicle.
To be eligible for the pilot program, residents must be 200% below the federal poverty line and live in one of Harris County’s “high-poverty ZIP codes” or be in the county’s Accessing Coordinated Care and Empowering Self Sufficiency, according to the county.
The program will supply 1,928 recipients with $500 payments for 18 months, beginning with the first payment going out in April.
“Reducing poverty and helping families who are struggling to meet basic needs should not be a political debate,” Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement last week, per the Houston Chronicle. “Our community is experiencing poverty at rates higher than other communities in Texas and around the nation, and we as county leaders have a duty to do everything we can to address it.”
The 18 months of payments offered by the program are set to be funded using $20.5 million allocated from the American Rescue Plan, which President Joe Biden signed into law in March 2021. Harris County officials are seeking to create “long-term sustainability and gradual expansion” for the program in the future, despite its current restricted timeline.
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“We’ll be looking into how we can fund this program long-term and hopefully help even more families in the future,” Hidalgo said.
The Harris County Commissioners Court approved the program in June 2023, and it is one of several attempted basic guaranteed income programs across the country.
