Lightfoot backs cash assistance for those excluded by COVID relief packages
Chicago Resiliency Fund to allot $5M to 300,000 residents
Mayor Lori Lightfoot announces formation of the Chicago Resiliency Fund Wednesday. (Chicago.gov)
By Ted Cox
Chicago’s mayor joined in forming a $5 million fund Wednesday to provide direct cash assistance to city residents excluded from previous federal coronavirus relief packages.
The Chicago Resiliency Fund will distribute up to $5 million, at $1,000 a household, to as many as 300,000 residents, including, but not limited to, “undocumented individuals, mixed-status families, dependent adults, and returning residents,” according to a news release.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the funding was targeted for those “unable to benefit from federal financial stimulus” in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Adding that it aims to be “as inclusive as possible,” Lightfoot said, “We have to be strong and united as a city to leave no one behind.”
Lightfoot praised the relief offered by federal COVID-19 relief packages like the CARES Act, but said it “leaves behind thousands of our residents,” including many essential workers and minority groups who’ve been hit especially hard by the pandemic. “These of course include our undocumented residents, mixed-status families, our dependent adults, and our college students living in poverty,” she said, as well as those recently released from prison and the homeless.
“They all need support,” Lightfoot said, adding, “We can’t allow what happens at the federal level to divide us.”
Lightfoot blamed President Trump for the failure of previous federal COVID-19 relief packages to address these overlooked residents and communities. The mayor said that, from the time he announced his candidacy, Trump has been “demonizing our immigrant and refugee community for his own political gain, and unfortunately he has not stopped.”
She added, “In Chicago, we have a very different view. … We will always be a strong, open, welcoming community to immigrants and refugees from every part of our world. … Our diversity is our strength, and we will never abandon those values.”
State Sen. Kimberly Lightford of Chicago called it a “wonderful project” that will provide “important relief for black and brown lives.” Pointing out that African Americans and Hispanics had been hit hard by COVID-19, she said the fund “recognizes these disparities” by providing “direct cash assistance to the poor and vulnerable.”
“What I’m hearing from people on the streets is don’t leave us behind, don’t neglect our neighborhoods,” Lightfoot said. “People in our city are hurting. Our neighbors are hurting.”
The fund is being launched with $1 million from the Open Society Foundations and will be administered by the Resurrection Project, a grassroots group originally serving the city’s Southwest Side. Lightfoot urged Chicagoans to contribute to the fund on their own through the Resurrection Projection’s Resiliency Fund website. It’s expected to begin distributing funds later this month.
Last week, Gov. Pritzker and Grace Hou, secretary of the Department of Human Services, announced a $2 million program, the COVID-19 Immigrant Family Support Project, to provide similar relief statewide. Administered by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, it required that recipients be state residents who have experienced an income reduction due to COVID-19, either by layoff or reduced hours, and be ineligible for federal relief, but the funding was almost immediately exhausted.
Although aimed specifically at providing coronavirus relief, the direct payments mimic Universal Basic Income, a program initially proposed in Chicago by Alderman Ameya Pawar, founder of One Illinois. Although never formally launched as a pilot program for the city — instead, a task force recommended expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit — it has nevertheless influenced so-called stimulus payments such as the federal COVID-19 payments to citizens making under $100,000.