Cash is freedom. That has been Denver Basic Income Project founder Mark Donovan’s refrain as he led a program that provided more than 800 homeless people in the Denver area with no-strings-attached cash payments every month for the last year.
For recipients Dia Broncucia, 53, and Justin Searls, 45, those payments have been a manifestation of a different concept: hope.
The money got them off the street, played a critical role in helping Broncucia recover from Stage 3 breast cancer and was a catalyst as the couple charts a new course for their lives after getting sober following years of drug use.
“We probably wouldn’t have been able to survive. I’m dead serious. Something would have happened,” Searls said of what might have been had they not been enrolled in the program.
The Denver Basic Income Project marked the anniversary of the first payments of its pilot program on Nov. 15. The program is funded through a mix of private, nonprofit and government money, with the city of Denver recently agreeing to renew its initial investment.
Researchers with the Center for Housing and Homelessness Research at the University of Denver have been tracking the impact the money has had on participants via voluntary surveys. They’ve seen some encouraging results thus far, as outlined in a midpoint report released last month.
The 802 people who enrolled in the program were broken into three categories. One group received $1,000 a month for 12 months, another received a $6,500 lump payment and then $500 a month for 11 months and the final group was selected to receive $50 a month for a year.
After six months of payments, recipients across those categories were living in homes or apartments that they owned or rented at a rate four times higher than when they first enrolled, 35% compared to 8%, according to those survey results. The percentage of recipients working full-time also rose from 22% to 27%, though that rate remained flat at 22% among the people in the $50-per-month category.
Beyond the numbers, it’s the human stories like Broncucia’s and Searls’ that assure Donovan he is on the right path with a project he started organizing in 2021 amid the upheaval of the pandemic. The next step is turning Denver into a national model for basic income initiatives focused on homelessness, he and other advocates hope.
Donovan and Denver aren’t alone in exploring the impact of cash transfers. The aspirational concept of a “universal basic income” for all Americans has been discussed on presidential debate stages thanks to Andrew Yang, and other communities around the country have introduced programs tailored for specific demographic groups. The City of Boulder is preparing to launch a 2-year program that will provide 200 low-income families with $500 per month with nothing required in return.
The Denver project has had a fundamental impact on Mark Gaskin. He was considering taking his own life before he was connected with the project. He lost his job after being injured in a workplace accident and then lost the home he was renting in Denver.
“To me, this program made a difference between giving up and having hope,” the 60-year-old said, “because I was at the point of giving up.”
Gaskin is still living in his car, staying on a property in Adams County but his $1,000 in monthly basic income payments have allowed him to keep up on his car payments and use the vehicle to keep looking for work.
He sees light at the end of the tunnel. He is hoping to be approved as a caregiver so he can take care of an aunt who recently was released from the hospital, something that will give him a source of income while he helps her.
“With the program, I saw there are people who care enough to assist me so I can assist myself,” he said. “They didn’t dictate to me how I needed to spend my money. They said here, you use this the best way you know how.”
Denver contributing another $2 million
The first phase of the Denver Basic Income Project is winding down.
The final round of payments to those enrolled later in the program will go out January 15, program runners say. Both Gaskin and Broncucia’s final installments came this month. Searls received his last payment in October.
A final report taking into account a full year’s worth of survey responses is expected to be released in June.
But the Denver Basic Income Project will continue, said Donovan. Exactly how it will operate going forward is still to be determined but the project has its first big funder for a second round of payments already lined up.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston included $2 million for the project in his revised budget for 2024, a response to a City Council request. That matches the federal funding former Mayor Michael Hancock and the City Council dedicated to the pilot program in 2022 and 2023. That first batch of city money was earmarked specifically to support 140 unhoused women, families and nonbinary or gender-nonconforming people.
At first, Johnston did not include the project in his budget but he changed his mind based on the early research findings and effective lobbying. Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, who spoke at a basic income rally alongside Donovan outside the state capitol in September, planned to push for another $1 million. She dropped that amendment to help secure more money for emergency rental assistance in the city next year.
“We have heard the outpouring of community support and advocacy for the Basic Income Project, and we have studied the six-month results of the pilot,” Johnston wrote in a letter announcing his decision.
It’s going to take more than the city’s $2 million to sustain the project though Donovan is confident other key supporters of the pilot program like the Colorado Health Foundation and the Colorado Trust will step up again.
The total cost of standing up the project and supporting 802 participants was roughly $9 million, Donovan said. He has invested more than $700,000 of his own money into it. He estimates the project could provide payments to 800 or so people again if it can raise $8 million.
He hopes recipients’ stories and the data will help convince funders ranging from big philanthropies down to small businesses and even individuals to give.
His sales pitch goes beyond the inspirational. He argues the payments are practical. Program participants in the midpoint study reported going to the emergency room less frequently and spending fewer nights in homeless shelters, drawing down fewer emergency resources that taxpayers support.
“We believe this has the potential to reduce the strain on emergency services and social contract programs and costs overall,” Donovan said. “We think it’s a really good investment for the city both at the public and private level.”
Donovan has fielded plenty of questions over the last year about whether recipients are taking the money and spending on drugs and alcohol but free will is a key component of the success, he says.
The research the Denver team is collecting and studies of other basic income projects like one completed two years ago in Stockton, Calif. gives Donovan and other advocates confidence that a vast majority of the money is going to necessities like food and clothing, bills or bigger life changes like purchasing vehicles or paying first and last month’s rent.
He referenced Searls and Broncucia’s decision to get sober, not because they had to but because they wanted to. They are not the only recipients making choices like that, he said.
“Will everybody do that? No, we can’t guarantee that everybody will,” Donovan said. “But we hear that story over and over again. And we think that people coming to that place on their own is much more powerful than trying to compel people and force them to do things.”
Whatever the future of the basic income concept is more broadly, the Denver Basic Income Project is on the national radar.
Jim Pugh, the co-founder and executive director of policy and advocacy group called Universal Income Project, said the Denver effort stands out to him for its focus on the unhoused. It may be the biggest project of its kind to date, he said.
“I’m based in California and how we address the homeless situation is a big open question,” Pugh said. “Cash transfers potentially could be an incredibly powerful tool in dealing with this issue.”
Receiving help at a low point
Searls and Broncucia have been together for 12 years. Before they were selected for the Denver Basic Income Project, the couple experienced an eye-opening low point.
Searls was in jail when Broncucia received her breast cancer diagnosis. He had warrants for drug possession and had been caught on camera breaking into a camper so that, he says, the two of them would have somewhere warm to sleep one night.
While he was locked up, Broncucia was provided a room in a medical respite shelter as she prepared for surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Searls was able to stay with her as her caregiver once he was released but they faced a mountain of challenges and uncertainty.
“I had 10 weeks of chemo and then they had to give me a couple of months off then I had 15 rounds of radiation,” Broncucia said. “You have to go every day. At the time we didn’t have a car. We were taking the bus.”
That’s when an advocate with the nonprofit dedicated to helping cancer patients suggested they sign up for the budding Denver Basic Income Project. They did and both were enrolled in the group that was granted $6,500 upfront and then $500 for 11 months.
They used their lump payments to rent an apartment and buy a car. Their used Saab, which they call “God’s car,” helped Searls find work and carried Broncucia to medical appointments. The infusion of money ran parallel to the couple making another crucial decision: staying sober after years of meth use.
“We came together and we’re like we’re not doing this anymore,” Searls said. “Whatever money that we got, we used it wisely. We used it for things we needed.”
Broncucia used Denver Basic Income money for cold-therapy mittens and socks to stave off complications during chemo, maybe the first online purchase she had ever made.
“You feel like you’re almost like a millionaire, you know?” she said.”You’ve got money to pull out of your pocket if you need to go get some socks.”
Even with guaranteed income, money is tight in one of the most expensive rental markets in the country. The couple moved out of their apartment and are now staying at a home in Adams County owned by one of Broncucia’s relatives. They pay for utilities but stay rent-free in return for doing work to spruce up the property.
Broncucia has fantasized about turning the house into a sober living facility or some other platform for helping people get their lives on track.
There are worries cropping up in the margins. In the midpoint report, survey respondents across payments groups reported declines in their overall mental health at the six-month mark. It is a data point that suggests knowing the money is only temporary weighed on participants as they got closer to their final installment.
Daniel Brisson the principal investigator leading the research, isn’t drawing any conclusions, not until the final report is released next year.
Broncucia and Searls are both looking for work again now. She isn’t afraid to say another year of basic income would be a huge help. She looks at the blowback Mayor Johnston is facing trying to establish more non-congregate shelter sites to achieve his House 1,000 homelessness initiative goal and get people off the streets.
“We just saw on TV that there was a homeless encampment that they shut down in Denver. People don’t want it in their neighborhood,” she said. “This is like a huge problem; homelessness, mental health, substance use. Basic income, would it help? We think so.”
