By Lindsey Toomer
A coalition of organizations supporting guaranteed income gathered for a rally Wednesday to urge Denver officials to extend funding for the Denver Basic Income Project, which provides no-strings-attached cash assistance to people experiencing homelessness.
The Denver Guaranteed Income Now! Coalition formed in 2023 and includes over 30 organizations that support making guaranteed income a permanent strategy for addressing homelessness in Denver. Advocates for guaranteed income say it is an effective tool that has an immediate impact on people’s lives.
Mark Donovan, founder and executive director of DBIP, said it’s “incredibly exciting and super frustrating at the same time” to see the project’s growing success and support from the community. The project has distributed more than $10.5 million to people unconditionally since its inception, he said.
“When you see something that’s working so well and has such potential, but then you’re just not able to move it forward at the pace that would reach more people and reduce suffering and harm faster, you just feel this urge … to find a way,” Donovan said. “So we’re here to raise our voices and express that sense of urgency, but also to celebrate what we have achieved and this hope that we have.”
DBIP, which started in 2020, is the first and largest organization in the country to study the impact of direct cash assistance on people experiencing homelessness. Denver partnered with the nonprofit in 2022 as a priority of the city’s Department of Housing Stability, providing $2 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding, and the organization secured funding to continue through this month. The payments DBIP sent out to participants this week are the last payments the project currently has funding for.
Now the organization is asking Denver for $5 million to finish funding a third year for its initial cohort, whose members were the subjects of the University of Denver’s Center for Housing and Homelessness Research randomized study on the project. The study found that participation in the DBIP led to improved housing outcomes for participants regardless of which funding level they were assigned to.
“Rather than waiting 10 years for us to have adequate housing that we need, we can actually support people in a way that’s meaningful to them today, and honor and respect their agency, and their dignity, and treat them just like we would like to be treated,” Donovan said.
Just over 800 participants were randomly assigned to three cohorts for the DU study. One cohort received $1,000 a month for 12 months, another received $6,500 up front and then $500 a month for the remaining 11 months, and the last group, the control group, received $50 a month to complete a survey so the project has a solid baseline for comparison. Participants also received a cell phone with service paid off for the 12 months of the program. In the extended version of the study after the first 12 months, the control group got $100 a month, and the other groups both got $1,000 a month.
Hunter Ambrose was accepted into DBIP and randomly assigned to the control group right as she was losing her home at the time. While $50 a month might not seem like much, Ambrose said it made a difference for food and gas for her and her three kids.
“Though it might not seem like a life changing amount, for me, it represented more than just financial relief,” Ambrose said at the rally. “It was a lifeline during some of the darkest moments of my life. It began to bridge the gap between despair and hope.”
She was able to secure housing, and even published, with DBIP’s support, her book on growing up in the Los Angeles foster care system.
“I am grateful for the staff at DBIP who believed in me at a time when others didn’t,” Ambrose said. “Your commitment to individuals in times of crisis is a testament to the strength of community and the power of kindness.”
DBIP Program Manager Gwen Battis said the nonprofit is also asking for $10 million from the city to fund a full three years of a second cohort for 300 people up front. She said the coalition is trying to use the support it has from Denver City Council and other organizations to demonstrate “how important this is to the community.”
“Last year, the (City Council) vote was almost unanimous to add the budget amendment to continue funding, so they’ve been supportive from the start,” Battis said. “What we’re really trying to do now is loop in the mayor’s office, which we haven’t been successful doing yet.”
I am grateful for the staff at DBIP who believed in me at a time when others didn’t … Your commitment to individuals in times of crisis is a testament to the strength of community and the power of kindness.
– Hunter Ambrose, a DBIP recipient
A group of advocates with the coalition and some DBIP participants went into the Denver City and County Building to ask Mayor Mike Johnston’s office for a meeting after several dozen attendees marched there from the Colorado Capitol for the rally. Supporters with a variety of organizations showed up to support the push for more funding.
“We’re really hopeful that the mayor can lend his ear, meet with us, collaborate with us and be able to work alongside us to continue expanding an intervention that’s already been proven to be successful,” Battis said. “We have the same objectives as him, and we’re just hoping to work together to be able to get more people housed and get more people into the situations that they deserve to be in.”
But Johnston’s office expressed doubt about DBIP’s effectiveness Wednesday.
“We are committed to using HOST’s limited dollars for programs that efficiently help as many people as possible get and stay housed,” Johnston’s press secretary, Jordan Fuja, said in a statement to Newsline, using an acronym for the Department of Housing Stability. “Unfortunately, the data in the year-one report from the DBIP did not show a statistically significant difference in homelessness resolution between the groups that received large cash transfers and those who did not. Because the data showed limited results in the first year, HOST’s proposed budget does not recommend funding in 2025 for this program.”
Denver City Council member Shontel Lewis, a consistent advocate for DBIP, spoke to supporters outside the city building on her lunch break between budget hearings. She said she’s disappointed that funding for the project didn’t make it into Johnston’s initial 2025 budget draft and that advocates have to “fight so hard for dignity for our neighbors.”
“I’m disappointed that despite the Denver Basic Income Project having such incredible results in their pilot year, we’re still having to prove its worth,” Lewis said, “still having to seek out the mayor to ask for emergency assistance for $1.7 million to fund the remainder of the pilot year, since it isn’t fully funded out the gate.”
Lewis said guaranteed income is just one solution that will reduce reliance on public services and reduce homelessness. She said she will use her voice during the city budgeting process to ensure city dollars support “the betterment of all citizens, not just the housed, not just the privileged.”
“To suggest that guaranteed income is more likely to be used for vices and unnecessary items is to dismiss the humanity of our neighbors in need,” Lewis said. “To expect our neighbors, at their lowest point, to overcome hardships without support is to lack compassion and empathy.”
Organizations in the Denver Guaranteed Income Now! Coalition include DBIP, the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, Community Change, Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, the Women’s Foundation of Colorado, and the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights.
“It’s rare that pilots are as successful as the Denver Basic Income Project. This is the largest pilot of its kind in the nation and we have proven that this policy helps people find permanent housing, secure full-time work, and saves the city money,” Hillary Jorgensen, Colorado Cross Disability Coalition co-executive director, said in a statement. “It’s time for Denver to make this one of their long-term solutions.”
New data from the Census Bureau shows that poverty in the Denver metro area has increased since the pandemic, reversing a downward trend between 2012 and 2019.
