Some undocumented immigrants in Texas could see monthly checks of $500 for a year and a half as part of a new county program aimed at assisting families living in poverty.
On Tuesday, a pilot program offering monthly cash payments to low-income residents in Harris County, which includes Houston, passed with a 4-1 vote. The universal basic income program, also known as the Uplift Harris program, allocates $20.5 million from the American Rescue Plan Act to 1,400 to 1,600 families who would receive $500 per month for 18 months.
During the vote, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, an advocate for the program, said the payments would go to residents of the "10 poorest neighborhoods" in the county, including people in "the undocumented community."
"Can the undocumented community apply? If the county attorney says they can, they will. If the county attorney says they can't, they won't. What I was told is they can," Hidalgo said, adding that participants would not be limited regarding what the money could be spent on.
According to the Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative, Harris County is home to more than 1.6 million illegal immigrants.
A spokesperson for Commissioner Tom Ramsey, the only one to vote against Uplift Harris, told Newsweek that he opposed the program because of "concerns over discrepancies in the administrative cost, no regulations on how the money is spent, and its high cost with minimal number of residents being impacted."
Newsweek reached out to Hidalgo via email for comment.
Because the county expects there to be more applicants than there are funds available, participants would be selected at random.
The 10 ZIP codes eligible for the Uplift Harris program are 77050, 77093, 77051, 77060, 77028, 77033, 77026, 77081, 77547 and 77091. Applications are expected to open in September.
"Decades of neglect, inequity and discrimination have financially destabilized generations of Harris County families, perpetuated poverty, and created unfair barriers to prosperity," said Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who spearheaded Uplift Harris. "Unchecked and ongoing inequality has created an economic divide that families can't overcome on their own, and Harris County has an obligation to act."
On Tuesday, Hidalgo called out critics of the program, arguing that there was pushback only on the allocation of federal dollars because it was being paid out "toward the poor."
"Why did we give $5 million, $6 million to the district attorney that she spent without the court's initial approval at the objection of the budget director that put us into a deficit? Why didn't we give that to the poor? What about the funds to the courtrooms that put us on the desks here? Why didn't we give that to the poor?" she asked.
"Let's be honest about the conversations that we have," Hidalgo said.
Harris County would not be the first place to launch a universal basic income program.
Austin, Texas, has a similar program, which dropped the percentage of families who couldn't afford food from 80 percent to 68 percent within six months, according to a study by the Urban Institute. It also found that the program reduced the number of families who were behind on rent from 55 percent to 33 percent.
The Oregon legislature recently proposed a bill that would provide 12 monthly payments of $1,000 to individuals "experiencing homelessness, are at risk of homelessness, are severely rent burdened or earn at or below 60 percent of area median income."
Update 6/9/23, 9:51 a.m. ET: This story was updated with comment from Ramsey.
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