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In the NoCo

A unique program gave a guaranteed income to 800 people experiencing homelessness in Denver. How much did it actually help?

Assistant Professor Katie Calhoun, a woman wearing glasses and a dark shirt with a leaf print, poses for a photo in the outdoors.
Courtesy of Katie Calhoun
"Housing is the response to homelessness, and guaranteed basic income provides a really important flexible spending mechanism to aid in accessing housing for folks," says Katie Calhoun. She was a lead researcher at the University of Denver, which partnered with the Denver Basic Income Project to assess the program's effectiveness. The project provided a guaranteed income for nearly 800 residents experiencing homelessness.

Since early 2023 hundreds of Denver residents experiencing homelessness received a monthly income whether they had a job or were unemployed.

Eight hundred participants received the payment as part of a program called the Denver Basic Income Project.  It was a pilot program designed to study whether rates of homelessness decrease when people are given a base-line income. Participants received either $600 a year or $12,000 a year.

The money came from a combination of public and private sources, including $4 million dollars from the office of the Denver Mayor. But the mayor’s office recently announced its plans to end its funding of the project. A spokesperson from the mayor's office pointed to disappointing results documented in a study of the program.

So what were the results – and did the basic income payments help the people who received them?

Erin O’Toole spoke with Katie Calhoun -- an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University -- about the results of the study. She served as a research lead on the project and also advocates for guaranteed basic income. She and a team of researchers at the University of Denver worked with the Denver Basic Income Project to decide what the different levels of income would be for participants. Then her team interviewed recipients on how it affected their lives to receive a guaranteed income.

Correction: An earlier version of this episode misstated the amount of funding the office of Denver’s mayor contributed to the Denver Basic Income Project. The audio has been updated to reflect the correct amount, which is $4 million.

KUNC's In The NoCo is a daily slice of stories, news, people and issues. It's a window to the communities along the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The show brings context and insight to the stories of the day, often elevating unheard voices in the process. And because life in Northern Colorado is a balance of work and play, we celebrate the lighter side of things here, too.
Ariel Lavery grew up in Louisville, Colorado and has returned to the Front Range after spending over 25 years moving around the country. She co-created the podcast Middle of Everywhere for WKMS, Murray State University’s NPR member station, and won Public Media Journalism awards in every season she produced for Middle of Everywhere. Her most recent series project is "The Burn Scar", published with The Modern West podcast. In it, she chronicles two years of her family’s financial and emotional struggle following the loss of her childhood home in the Marshall Fire.
As the host of KUNC’s new program and podcast In the NoCo, I work closely with our producers and reporters to bring context and diverse perspectives to the important issues of the day. Northern Colorado is such a diverse and growing region, brimming with history, culture, music, education, civic engagement, and amazing outdoor recreation. I love finding the stories and voices that reflect what makes NoCo such an extraordinary place to live.