Denver launched a multimillion-dollar experimental universal basic income (UBI) program during the pandemic with the funds "earmarked for women, families, and transgender and gender non-conforming individuals," but now we learn they won't be the only beneficiaries.
The city is putting illegal aliens on the UBI gravy train, too.
The Denver Basic Income Project (DBIC) gets its money from the city and grants created by Presidentish Joe Biden's unnecessary and inflationary 2021 American Rescue Plan (ARP). The best sources I can find — tracking the money isn't easy — indicate that Denver has put up $2 million with another $4 million coming from Biden's ARP. It seems likely that the city or Uncle Sugar has ponied up more millions since those figures were released in 2022. According to today's news, disbursements so far total $6.5 million, and that doesn't include overhead.
"If I’ve done my math correctly," I wrote when the program launched in 2022, "the budget includes a minimum of $320,000 in overhead for DBIC." Vagrants can't administer themselves, you know. And handing out the free money, making sure it goes to only the right people, is a grueling business. Lucrative, too, you can't help but notice.
According to The Center Square, "Payments range from $50 per month to $1,000 per month as well as a one-time cash transfer of $6,500 in addition to 11 payments of $500 per month, all dependent on how the participants were classified."
The program has been extended another six months, and DBIC will add 39 more people to the program in 2024 — and illegal aliens (migrants in the mainstream media parlance) are now welcome to apply "as long as they meet the criteria."
I don't know how many "women, families, and transgender and gender non-conforming individuals" are among the illegal aliens arriving in Denver by their own means or with an assist from Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. But I have read multiple reports like this one, detailing "a massive surge of mainly adult male migrants from across the globe."
It's a safe guess, though, that with record-shattering numbers of illegals crossing Biden's nonexistent southern border, Denver won't have much trouble finding up to 39 who meet DBIC's criteria.
Broadly speaking, Denver's approach to vagrancy (with or without DBIC) has been an expensive failure.
The city spent $481 million on homeless programs in 2021, administering to about 6,850 homeless people. That’s more than $70,000 per homeless person. The median income in Denver for that same year was $72,000.
There’s something seriously wrong with an aid program that can spend a year’s wages on a homeless person without causing them to stop “experiencing homelessness.”
If Denver would take those millions and dedicate the entire lump sum to deserving families as rent support, job training, and placement assistance, I wouldn’t dream of arguing against it. As things stand now, and probably forever, we have another Washington-supported blue-city giveaway program that provides nice incomes for administrators but little help for those who most deserve it.
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