San Francisco launches guaranteed income program for transgender residents
The City of San Francisco will begin offering a guaranteed income program for transgender residents, after the state last month gave the city the OK to begin using the program as a model for other California cities.
The decision on Tuesday by the San Francisco Department of Human Services followed the approval last month by state officials of a program that will target residents of that city with a guaranteed income to live on.
Earlier this year, the state approved the pilot grant, which will also be available to residents of Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo and Siskiyou counties. The other cities will have to apply to the state.
“This is a really exciting day that all of us working on the issues of discrimination, equity, and justice have been hoping for. Finally, in the face of years of trying to change the way things work in our state, we’re going to see programs in our state to address these issues,” said Barbara Lee, executive director of Transgender Rights Advocates of California. “It’s going to be really exciting.”
The pilot grant program is being coordinated by the California Department of Human Services.
The program is expected to distribute $20 million in a two-year period to six cities to fund the creation of a new, state-of-the-art, permanent, full-time city-based center for transgender service delivery, along with a network of existing city-based, community-based agencies for transgender service.
The program is part of California’s 2016 comprehensive plan for comprehensive statewide reform, which also includes a call to action for California cities to explore whether their own programs of affordable housing, affordable child care, and guaranteed income for individuals with disabilities can be used, among other things, as models for cities in other states.
“We have known for 20 years that there is a need for these kinds of services for transgender people. We have known for over 20 years that those people were not getting care,” said Lee.
“This is a very
