Oakland to give low-income Black, Indigenous families $500 per month
White people need not apply
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Oakland, California residents could receive some free money soon thanks to a new project aiming to help residents overcome economic instability.
According to the Mayor of Oakland Libby Schaaf, a $500 monthly payout could be coming to hundreds of people of color, Black, and Indigenous families for over a year, per CNN.
"The poverty we all witness today is not a personal failure, it is a systems failure," said Schaaf in a statement. "Guaranteed income is one of the most promising tools for systems change, racial equity, and economic mobility we've seen in decades."
In order to qualify for the Oakland Resilient Families payments program, residents must have at least one child under the age of 18 and income needs to be below $59,000 for a family of three.
The monies are not considered taxable income and undocumented and/or unsheltered individuals also qualify.
An online multilingual screening form will be made available this spring and summer. Recipients will be chosen at random to receive the funds.
Back in December, it was announced that Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey also supports universal income. As per theGrio, the tech guru is providing a $15 million grant to support basic income programs around the country.
The funds will be dispersed to mayors who participate in Mayors for a Guaranteed Income (MGI), a group made up of 29 mayors who are creating a plan or are already distributing funds to residents that need the additional financial support.
"Thank you Mayor and to all the Mayors of @mayorsforagi for these universal basic income pilots! I hope they inform federal policy in the future," Dorsey tweeted.
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How black do I have to be? My DNA test says I am 3% West African. Is that enough? What’s the minimum?
So, the homeless and illegals can get $500 / month handed to them. Are there stipulations stating that they cannot be alcoholics or drug addicts and will be regularly screened? Let me also say that I'm not saying that all homeless or illegal immigrants are alcoholics or drug addicts. Considering that to receive welfare does not require alcohol or drug screens, I'd imagine that it won't be a requirement here either. I just wonder if the state has considered buying up property and updating as required and for payment to live in the buildings, the people do maintenance, cut the lawn, paint, etc. rather than simply giving monthly checks that may not be spent as intended.
The article is pretty vague. Is a family a requirement? I ask, because usually if there's kids involved, CPS or the state's health org. will remove kids from parents if they're homeless or have illegally immigrated. Moreover, Tacos! brings up a good point. Are they going to regulate this at the federal level like they do with Indigenous People and require a specific blood quantum for benefits?
I don't know... this all seems very sketchy. But that's only my opinion. Take it for what it's worth.
The SCOTUS has said assuming people are drug users without evidence and forcing them to take testing to receive benefits is against the 4th Amendment. Personally I'd rather see the money go into mental health, jobs training and day care programs for these people.
I agree.
I or we we it this way, it can also be a case study for a UBI. I am interested to see what the results end up being.
MsAubrey - I have a bit of an issue with that. When I was stationed in SF (2010 - 2013) I would catch the tram to my place (Bay Point) and the ride would last 45 - 50 minutes.
Got to meet and talk with a number of "homeless/illegal aliens" about their lives in SF. The surprising answer I got from "most" of them regarding getting a job is that - as panhandlers, many of them were making over $80K - non-taxable of course. One fella said he had a BMW in the garage, a BMW bike and his wife didn't have to work as he was "making" between $100K - $140K.
BUT, when you saw them next to the tram station - OMG - the dirtiest, most foul-mouthed people you'd be afraid of.
There's a couple people here like that; they stand at the end of a freeway off ramp. They have newer shoes than I do, but they make sure they wear the nastiest clothes they can to panhandle. Most people don't look at shoes... I look at shoes.
If you say so, then it must be true. Did someone give them the latest iPhone too?
Indigenous to the US? The US has no indigenous people. Everyone migrated to here from somewhere else.
Maybe they mean people who were living on the land that became the United States before the country was officially founded.
In which case, that would also include several million white people.
Nah - the population in 1779 in the Western Hemisphere for white folks was only 2,666,811. Didn't get to be in the "millions" until 'bout 1800 with 5,308,483 if you're using the term "several" to mean more that two, but not many.
Not true, American Indians are the indigenous people of the US. If your statement were true there would be no indigenous people anywhere in the world since all originated from one spot in Africa.
Oakland will be the 2nd city in California to try UBI the first results are in.
Well, that is sort of what “indigenous” means.
It can, of course, also refer to a people who are encountered by a colonizing force. Factually, Homo Sapiens are native to Africa.
Yes, they did around 30,000 years ago. Actually, it is logically consistent since we were here ten of thousands of years before the Europeans showed up and before any other people. Being the first people to inhabit a land are indigenous.
Actually, we don't use the term indigenous as it was placed on us by the other forces, we much prefer the actual names that we have used for thousands of years, my group of people are Anishinaabe.
No one is debating the rest of your comment, so I have no idea why you are trying to point out something that no one is debating.
There are a number of judicial decisions written on this subject. You could entertain yourself plowing through them. Upgrade your knowledge on the subject so to speak.
Paula brought it up and I replied. Then you had a comment and I replied to that. It's pretty simple.
None of which alter the simple logic of what Paula and I have said.
The American tribes finally got good legal representation and sympathetic courts. It's good for them, but there have been thousands of tribes and nations all over the world, from Africa to America, that were trampled under foot by someone else, and either assimilated into their conquerors' society, were driven to lands they didn't choose, or were never heard from again.
And I would bet every person alive could claim that kind of ancestry, but they probably won't get checks in the mail for it.
Actually, everything we have won and lost has been under US law. You really need to do some research on American Law and how it has been applied to American Indians. A good starting place would be the Doctrine of Discovery and Inter Caetera, you can follow that through to today's status on land via SCOTUS. It would be a good learning experience for you.
I posted a link on UBI that was tried in another California city and the results. See comment 4.2.
Have a great evening.
Yeah, I think I said that.
Why? Did I say something that was not true?
Actually, you said good legal representation and sympathetic courts. The cases were won or lost on the letter of the law, not because of a sympathetic court. You may want to read Justice Gorsuch ruling on two of the cases that were before SCOTUS.
More of not understanding that part of the law, why and how it came about, and how it's applied.
I'd recommend starting with the Marshall Trilogy and working your way up.
If you'd like, I've got a ton of Fed Indian Law books with cases that would just turn your hair.
Yes, the Marshall Trilogy is a good place but if we go back to the Doctrine of Discovery and Inter Caetera it's a good base to see how Marshall interpreted and applied the law regarding the land title/ownership in the US.
Thanks for the offer, I have some but there are a few more that would be beneficial to some of the things I'm presently dealing with.
One of my favorites is the Boldt Decision of 1974 which was later affirmed by the 9th Circuit and in 1978/79 by SCOTUS.
Also the Voight Decision 1983 LAC COURTE OREILLES vs. WISCONSIN. I was very involved in the Walleye Wars in WI and the decision was huge and in our favor. SCOTUS advised that ''Treaties are the Highest Law in the Land''. Later this was upheld in a court case in MN.
This is what Justice Gorsuch referred to (treaties) in his majority decision in McGirt vs Oklahoma.
Yes, did you not understand that to be courts in the United States judicial system?
The courts interpreted the law in their favor. That doesn't always happen. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it's real. You think British courts care about the interests of the descendants of Picts or Celts? I doubt it.
Did United States courts care as the government went back on its word over and over? Not really. Did the tribes even get to make the argument before a court? Not usually.
The reality is that - again, not stating what is morally or legally right or wrong - the native tribes of America are lucky they got what they have in comparison to what has gone on in the rest of the world throughout time. As badly as they were treated by the US government, they have ended up more complete in their culture and protected in their rights than countless other societies that are just gone now.
The concern is not with the rest of the world but with the US. Most treaties were broken and the treatment of the indigenous people of the US horrific. But, because we are the US many non-Indians saw the injustices and we Indians quickly learned how to battle in the legal system. So we became lawyers, judges etc and worked in the system as it was meant to be.
BTW, we are considered sovereign nations within the US.
We are not lucky, we are determined and we are still here.
Damn - sorry Kavika - thought I was replying to Tacos - mea culpa.
There are a number of well written books dealing with the legal crappola that Native Americans have to go through. Vine DeLoria, Wilkins, Camby, Echo-Hawk - deal specifically with the SCOTUS cases and how our "rights" have been eroded and taken away with "most" of the court cases. Did you know that Native Americans only win about 18% of the cases they "used" to bring to SCOTUS??? Well, believe it or not, we've done a lot better now that Gorsuch, Kegan, Sotomayer, and Beyer are on the court.
Gorsuch is an expert in Indian law and I read a story on Sotomayer when she was appointed to the Supreme Court she delved into Indian law to make yourself well versed in it.
368 treaties between the U. S. and Native Americans between 1778 and 1871 and all of them were/have been broken by the U.S.
should read, ''herself'' not yourself.
So the legacy of our collective white guilt over slavery is that we will make this reparation to poor people of color, but ignore poor white people? I mean, I could see the argument of going after rich white people, but poor white people? What for? Because of all the poor white people who owned slaves?