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Oregon considers giving homeless and low-income earners $1,000 a month in guaranteed income
Oregon is considering giving its vast homeless and low-income population $1,000 in no-strings-attached cash.
The bill was proposed last month by woke State Senator Wlnsvey Campos – who was among those calling to abolish the police in the summer of 2020 when the city of Portland was besieged by protesters – and Rep. Khanh Pham.
The bill is not the first of its kind – similar experiments have been carried out in other Democratic cities across the country, despite their gargantuan price tag.
The Oregon payments would last until January 2026 and cost the city at least $14.6million-a-month based on current homeless figures.
In reality the cost would be even higher – the bill also proposes that any household spending more than 50 percent of monthly income on rent should also be eligible.
Homeless tents on the sidewalk in Portland, Oregon. The state’s homeless population has soared over the last few years amid civil unrest and divesting in police
Senate Bill 603, which would give homeless and low-income residents of Oregon $1,000-a-month
According to the legislation put forward last month, ‘payments may be used for rent, emergency expenses, food, child care or other goods or services of the participant’s choosing.’
The bill is currently being debated in Oregon’s State Senate Committee.
The bill would require a study on those who receive the payments, broken down among certain demographics, such as race, veteran status and risk of domestic violence.
A similar program was implemented in Vancouver B.C. in Canada in 2018, with homeless participants receiving $7,500 each, and Stockton, California, where employment figures among recipients rose.
More controversial schemes are being looked at in Palm Springs, where any transgender and non-binary residents who also meet the poverty threshold may be eligible for monthly payments of $900. The new pilot program will have $200,000 set aside for allocation after a unanimous vote by the Palm Springs City Council earlier in 2022.
Oregon has experienced high levels of homelessness for several years, especially in areas like Portland where up to 700 tent camps have taken over sections of the city.
The bill was proposed last month by woke State Senator Wlnsvey Campos (left) and Rep. Khanh Pham (right)
State Senator Campos was among those calling to abolish the police in the summer of 2020 when the city of Portland was besieged by protesters
The state has also been trying to tackle increased drug use and trafficking after it passed a law decriminalizing street drugs last year.
The state Health Authority ruled that the legislation had ‘failed’ just seven months after it went into effect.
A national report released late 2022 showed the number of people experiencing homelessness across the U.S. has been relatively steady since 2016 despite the Coronavirus pandemic.
The report also showed that the number of people sleeping on the streets in Oregon has spiked.
There were 582,462 people sleeping on the streets nationally during a single night in January 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — up 0.3% from 2020.
Point-in-time counts aim to provide a snapshot of who is sleeping on the streets on any given night, and they are often taken as an undercount.
In Oregon, there were 14,655 people, an increase of 22.5% since 2020, according to the federal data.
Other Democratic cities including Tacoma, Washington and Gainesville, Florida, are trying out the payments, with handouts ranging from $250-$1,000 per month.
Cook County in Chicago has started doling out $500 to more than 3,250 residents in a yearlong pilot, one of the nation’s largest to date.
From Tacoma to Gainesville, local administrations are trying out guaranteed payouts to poor households in the region of $250-$1,000 per month
Los Angeles residents signing up for a chance to join the city’s guaranteed $1,000 monthly payouts. To qualify, households had to earn less than $96,000 and not receive any other government handouts
The trials are popular and beneficiaries say the money helps families put food on the table, reduce stress, pay education costs, and overcome daily hurdles, such as being able to buy a car to commute to work.
But they’re also proving controversial. In some cases, they single out specific groups, like transgender Californians.
Advocates have even said they’re inspired by the Black Panther armed Marxist group or are reparations for historic racism.
In recent years, the policy has won over Silicon Valley mavens, including former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey, who funds pilots and warns that automation and AI could leave millions of people unemployed and unleash social chaos.
Supporters of the policy say it lifts poor Americans out of poverty and allows them to be entrepreneurial, but critics say they’re a wrongheaded socialist idea that fuels inflation, raises taxes, hurts the poor and deters people from working.
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