Denver City Council resulted in the program ultimately being put on hiatus. “We had really strong City Council support in 2024, who were bringing a $4 million budget amendment to continue finding basic income and to allow us to continue even further that would’ve gotten us well through year 2 and partly into year 3 [of the program],” Battis said. “Our whole goal was to continue for 3 years, but unfortunately, the City of Denver, specifically Mayor Johnston,… at the last minute pulled the rug out from under us. The Denver VOICE also spoke with Sarah Parady, an at-large member of the Denver City Council, about her thoughts on basic income programs and the future of it as a city-wide policy. Spending 10 years helping low-income individuals in civil rights cases, Parady stated that she joined City Council because she “could see the costs of living making life tougher and tougher for pretty much everyone in Denver” and that she wants to “push relentlessly for [the city] to use resources in a way that keeps people safe, healthy, and secure first and foremost.” Parady believes that basic income is a great way to simplify and fix the problems with the current social safety net. “Those systems have always had racial, ableist, and other judgments baked into them, and stigma and shaming surrounding participation,” Parady said. “Over time, they have been engineered to be more complex, which adds administrative expense, deters people from applying, and makes them less and less effective, undercutting the public argument for why we have them in the first place. All of that is solved by basic income.” According to Parady, the city budget is the main challenge to implementing a basic income program in the city. “I do think that the degree of constraint in our city budgets (how we use money, how much we can raise) makes it a lot harder to achieve something like universal basic income (UBI) purely at the local level, as opposed to a higher level of government,” Parady said. “It’s hard to undo complexity and hard to fund something universal from within a city budget when so much of our spending has rules around it that we at the local level did not create.” While there are challenges, Parady states that if given the opportunity, “I would support another effort to assess a basic income program in Denver and would happily fund any program that provides stability to Denverites.” FUTURE OF BASIC INCOME IN DENVER Despite the uncertainty facing the DBIP and the idea of basic income in Denver, individuals, as well as organizations like the DBIP, are advocating for ways to use Colorado’s wealth to benefit its citizens through the Cash for Coloradans Coalition (CCC). “This coalition is growing really quickly because with AI and automation and job displacement, there’s this big moment that we’re in of how are we going to sustain people’s livelihoods,” Battis said. “I don’t think legislatures or big corporations are concerned about that or have a plan, so that’s where we’re brainstorming what we can do and what we can get done.” For those wanting to learn more about the CCC or want to help bring this to policy, Battis said to send her an email, gwen@ denverbasicincomeproject.org, denverbasicincomeproject.org. or sign up at DENVER CITY AND COUNTY BUILDING | PHOTO BY ETHAN CLARK FREE MONEY AS THE SOLUTION TO HOMELESSNESS A Denver-based organization launches a nationwide basic income movement to address poverty and homelessness. STORY BY ETHAN CLARK WHETHER YOU’VE EXPERIENCED IT YOURSELF, known someone who’s experienced it, or have just seen it in your day-to-day life, homelessness is one of the most prominent issues the US faces. In recent years, a new idea has gained popularity that has the potential to not only solve the root of homelessness, but could cost significantly less money per person than current programs: Basic Income. Basic income programs directly give a specific population of people money each month to use on whatever they want. Unlike other assistance programs, which offer a lot less flexibility, experts say basic income programs promote agency and brand themselves as investing in the population. Denver is home to one of the more than 160 basic income programs across 33 states, according to the Maine Center for Economic Policy. Since 2022, the Denver Basic Income Project has distributed more than $10.5 million to over 800 people who are homeless in Denver. While participants in the programs say they provide there is a concerted effort by some immeasurable benefits, right-wing organizations to get rid of basic income altogether. This has put several programs, including DBIP, at risk of shutting down due to a lack of funding. “The important thing about direct cash is that it’s a way of telling people that you trust them and that they deserve the dignity and agency to make your own choices in your life that a lot of other forms of support or benefits don’t grant you,” said Gwen Battis, DBIP’s project manager. HOW BAD IS THE PROBLEM? Basic income is not a new idea, but it is one that has become more popular because of the rising cost of living and growing homelessness crisis. According to federal data, nearly 23 out of every 100,000 Americans face some sort of homelessness. In 2024, there were around 771,000 homeless people, increasing by about 18% since 2023. Senior citizens and families with children were two of the fastest-growing demographics; however, it is far from exclusive to them. Using data from the DMHI, in the Dever area, there were an estimated 10,774 people experiencing homelessness as of January 27. Denver County had the majority of the homeless population at 7,327, and Jefferson County followed with 1,174. Broomfield and Douglas counties had the smallest homeless population in the metro area, with only 67 and 58 reported. WHAT IS THE DENVER BASIC INCOME PROGRAM? Mark Donovan, a Denver-based entrepreneur and philanthropist, started the Denver Basic Income Program (DBIP) in 2020, with a full pilot launching in 2022, to find a new way to address the growing homelessness issue. According to the DBIP’s website, the pilot was conducted by dividing people into three groups. Group A would be giving monthly payments of $1000 for 12 months, group B would receive an initial payment of $6500 and receive 11 monthly payments of $500, and group C would receive monthly payments of $50 for 12 months. The results were overwhelmingly positive, with participants in all three groups having a higher rate of permanent residency and having more financial stability. Battis said the goal of DBIP was to “give people cash with no strings attached, invest in people directly, demonstrate that November 2025 DENVER VOICE 11
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