Oregon considers giving low-income and homeless people $1,000 a month in guaranteed income

Oregon is considering new legislation that will give low-income and homeless people $1,000 a month in universal basic income.

The bill, introduced last month, would establish a Popular Housing Assistance Fund Demonstration Program through the state Department of Human Services.

Payments of $1,000 may be used at the discretion of the recipients.

As many as 14,650 people are homeless in Oregon, data from the National Alliance to End Homelessness shows.

According to Bill Track 50, the legislation would “provide 12 monthly payments of $1,000 to individuals who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, have a large rent burden, or earn 60 percent or less of the area median income.” .

Homeless in Portland (file photo)

“Payments may be used for rent, emergency expenses, food, child care, or other goods or services of the participant’s choice,” the bill states.

People who spend more than 50 percent of their monthly household income on rent and those who earn 60 percent or less of the area median income may also be eligible for financing.

The bill would require a study of who receives the payments, broken down among certain demographics, such as race, veteran status, and risk of domestic violence.

The program would continue until January 2026, at which time the study must be submitted, the bill states.

Senate Bill 603 would allocate $25 million from the Oregon state general fund to create the People’s Housing Assistance Fund Demonstration Program, administered by the Department of Human Services, according to Katu, a news outlet based in Portland.

Senator Wlnsvey Campos and State Representative Khanh Pham are the sponsors of the proposed bill.

A similar program was implemented in Vancouver BC in Canada in 2018, with homeless participants receiving $7,500 each.

UBI is now up and running in the US Established in 1983, the Alaska Permanent Dividend Fund sends annual payments, typically between $1,000 and $2,000, to more than 600,000 Alaskans.

There have also been other UBI programs in states like Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, and New Jersey.

Palm Springs, California, plans to grant a universal basic income to transgender and non-binary residents.

Transgender residents are eligible to receive UBI of up to $900 per month solely for identifying as transgender or non-binary.

The new pilot program will have $200,000 set aside for allocation after a unanimous vote by the Palm Springs City Council in early 2022.

Portland currently has more than 700 homeless encampments throughout the city.

The city stated that the program is only for those who reach a poverty line.

“I’m low income and I have to say it’s very, very hard to make ends meet, especially on a very small budget,” Florence resident Charene Reavis said during a public hearing on the bill.

Reavis is on the steering committee of Residents Organizing for Change, a group of organizations and residents who lobby for housing policies and solutions in Oregon.

“When I was moving into the house, I had to borrow money for the rent, the deposit, and it took me almost a year to get over everything I had to do to move,” she said.

Oregon has experienced high levels of homelessness for several years, especially in areas like Portland, where as many as 700 tent encampments have taken over sections of the city.

The state has also been trying to address the rise in drug use and trafficking after it passed a law decriminalizing street drugs last year.

The state Health Authority ruled the legislation had ‘failed’ just seven months after it came into force.

A national report released in late 2022 showed that the number of homeless people in the US has been relatively stable since 2016 despite the coronavirus pandemic.

The report also showed that the number of people sleeping on the streets in Oregon has skyrocketed.

There were 582,462 people sleeping rough nationwide during a single night in January 2022, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, up 0.3% from 2020.

Spot counts are intended to provide a snapshot of who is sleeping on the streets on any given night and are often taken as an undercount.

There were 14,655 people in Oregon, an increase of 22.5% from 2020, according to federal data.