By Marcus Dieterle
Baltimore will pay $1,000 monthly for two years to 200 young parents as part of a guaranteed income pilot program, Mayor Brandon Scott announced on Wednesday.
The city’s guaranteed income pilot program, called the Baltimore Young Families Success Fund, “will help combat the economic fallout from COVID-19 and assist young parents hit the hardest by the pandemic,” Scott said in a statement.
Danielle Torain, director of the Open Society Institute of Baltimore, said Baltimore’s Black and Latino communities have long experienced institutional disinvestment, and those challenges deepened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Guaranteed Income is a powerful people-centered way to address both the historic disinvestment and the more recent impact of COVID,” Torain said in a statement. “We hope that by collaborating with communities and creating this pilot, we can create a lasting model to help pull people out of poverty and invite more public and private investment in these communities.”
The pilot program will be available to 200 young parents and guardians who are 18-24 years old at the time of their application and who are Baltimore City residents.
Applicants must have an income at or below 300% of the federal poverty level for their household size, and the parent or guardian must have full or partial care-taking responsibilities.
Parents can apply for the guaranteed income program from 6 a.m. May 2 through 11:59 p.m. May 9.
