Columbus families experiencing homelessness to get $1,500, monthly payments
As homelessness outpaces population growth in Franklin County, two local organizations are partnering together to give guaranteed payments to families without housing.
At its 2025 PIVOT Summit on May 29, RISE Together Innovation Institute CEO Danielle Sydnor plans to announce Stabilize Families, a partnership with Community Shelter Board and others to offer guaranteed income to local families who are unhoused.
Community Shelter Board is giving 80 families $1,500 and then 20 of those families will also get $500 payments each month for 11 months, according to RISE Together, a nonprofit group aimed at ending poverty. RISE Together will fund the $500 monthly payments.
Ohio State University will conduct research of the pilot program's impact.
Can $500 change a life? Central Ohio uses Universal Basic Income concepts to target poverty
'With Community Shelter Board and other partners, we are building a new narrative to address poverty and support families experiencing homelessness,' Sydnor said in a statement. 'Guaranteed income is a viable strategy to promote economic stability and well-being for residents in Franklin County.'
Families shouldn't have to choose between paying rent and putting food on their table, said Shannon Isom, president and CEO of Community Shelter Board, in a statement.
'Stabilize Families is about dignity — giving parents the breathing room to stabilize, plan, and dream again," Isom said. "This partnership moves us beyond temporary shelter to real solutions that empower families to reclaim their future."
The pilot can also act as a model for how public, private and nonprofit sectors in the region can work together to address the root causes of homelessness and poverty with bold, evidence-based strategies, Isom said.
This is the third program locally to launch that uses the principles of Universal Basic Income, or UBI, which describes programs that offer no-strings-attached cash payments.
RISE Together is also a funder of the Ohio Mother's Trust, along with UpTogether.
What is UBI? Universal Basic Income has buy-in from Columbus, Franklin County leaders
The Ohio Mother's Trust is a local pilot program that gives 32 local mothers, selected by grassroots collective Motherful, $500 per month for 12 months. It began in January and was one of the first two local programs using the principles of a concept called Universal Basic Income, or UBI.
The other is the city of Columbus' Economic Mobility Accelerator Program. It is giving $500 a month to 200 local people enrolled in six area programs for two years and started payments in March.
The idea for Stabilize Families came up in RISE Together's last PIVOT Summit, in 2024, during a conversation about boosting economic security for families through guaranteed income, according to RISE.
The announcement comes at a time when homelessness locally and use of the shelter system are up.
The latest annual count, released earlier this month by the Community Shelter Board, found that homelessness in 2024 increased six times faster than Franklin County's population growth.
Community Shelter Board's annual "point-in-time" count, which took place Jan. 23, found 2,556 people experiencing homelessness locally — up 7.4% from the 2024 count of 2,380 people. Since 2022, there's been a more than 30% increase in unhoused people in the county.
Underserved Communities Reporter Danae King can be reached at dking@dispatch.com or on X at @DanaeKing.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: 20 unhoused Columbus families to get monthly payments for one year
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