By Bennett Leckrone
Baltimore is set to give 200 young parents a cash payment of $1,000 per month over two years as part of a guaranteed income pilot program, Mayor Brandon M. Scott (D) announced Wednesday.
The Baltimore Young Families Success Fund program was designed over the past year by a steering committee led by Center for Urban Families Founder, President and CEO Joe Jones Jr., and Danielle Torain, the director of the Open Society Institute-Baltimore.
“Baltimore’s predominantly Black and Latino working-class communities — already suffering from decades of institutional disinvestment — were among the hardest hit by the COVID pandemic and its economic fallout,” Torain said in a statement. “Guaranteed Income is a powerful people-centered way to address both the historic disinvestment and the more recent impact of COVID.”
Applications will open online at 6 a.m. on May 2 for the Baltimore Young Families Success Fund pilot program, which will be funded by a mix of $4.8 million of the city’s federal American Rescue Plan Act funds and philanthropic donations. The application period ends at 11:59 p.m. on May 9.