Applications for city's first guaranteed income program to open April 15

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Applications for the city's first-ever guaranteed basic income program will open on April 25, allowing Chicago residents who suffered economic hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic to enter a lottery to get $500 monthly payments for one year.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot's office announced the $31.5 million "Chicago Resilient Communities" pilot program will provide monthly cash assistance to 5,000 low-income households.

"I remain committed to making an equitable recovery from the pandemic to stabilize and ensure the wellbeing of all residents," Lightfoot said in a statement. 

The program will accept applications from 9 a.m. on April 25 through 11:59 p.m. on May 13 at chicago.gov/cashpilot. More information is available now at that website, including the option to sign up for an alert when applications are available.

To qualify for the program, residents must have lived in Chicago for at least one year, be 18 years old or older, have experienced economic hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and have a household income below 250% of the federal poverty level. That's $57,575 for a family of three, according to the mayor's office.

The city has chosen international nonprofit GiveDirectly and Denver-based tech platform AidKit to administer the program. YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago, the Center for Changing Lives, Phalanx Family Services, Pui Tak Center, Spanish Coalition for Housing, and the United African Organization to conduct outreach efforts to get eligible Chicagoans to sign up for the program.

The City Council approved the basic income pilot program as part of Lightfoot's $16.7 billion budget plan for 2022.

Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th), Lightfoot's former floor leader, proposed a guaranteed basic income program last April, but his proposal was bottled up in committee after members of the City Council Black Caucus called for a plan for the city to first pay reparations to the descendants of slaves.

Lightfoot also opposed the idea at the time Villegas introduced it, but later included a guaranteed income program in her 2022 budget plan.