Cambridge City Council’s Human Services and Veterans Committee met Wednesday to discuss the final research report for Rise Up Cambridge, a citywide program that provided cash assistance for low-income residents.
The report, written by MDRC, an independent non-partisan research organization, found that in just the 18 months it was around, the Rise Up program with the average $9,000 in grants it gave had a substantial impact in reducing material hardship on its participants.
“We all know and understand that $9,000 over 18 months cannot change the trajectory of an individual or family,” said Geeta Pradhan, president of Cambridge Community Foundation, which implemented the program alongside the city and Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee (CEOC). But she said the cash assistance helped stabilize families that were struggling, and is worth investing in.
Rise Up launched in 2023 to help support Cambridge’s lowest-income families amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The application-based program, supported by $22 million in private donations and funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, which gave emergency COVID-19 recovery funds to taxpayers and state and local governments across the country, provided monthly payments of $500 in unrestricted cash to 1,927 families. All of those families had children aged 21 years or younger, and combined family income was up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level, or $62,150 for a three-person household, based on the 2023 poverty level of $24,860. The payments did not affect other benefits families may have been receiving.
Help with basic needs
Families enrolled in the program could use the monthly payments at their discretion. Common uses for the funds were food, rent, bills, utilities and children’s clothing or shoes, according to the report.
The research report MDRC presented to city councilors combined qualitative and quantitative data from interviews, focus groups and storytelling to compare findings and experiences among different types of families enrolled in the program, according to Mina Addo, an MDRC research associate. Around 67 percent of Rise Up’s enrolled families participated in the study. Because the study did not have a group that did not receive payments, MDRC could not claim that Rise Up directly caused certain outcomes, Addo said.
Respondents in general reported that they were grateful for Rise Up and that the program reduced their stress levels, gave them a sense of empowerment and allowed them to experience meaningful financial relief and more time with family.
“Survival mode”
“I feel like, for so long, I’ve been in survival mode,” one Rise Up participant told MDRC in a study interview. “I’m just trying from paycheck to paycheck and there’s never enough and I’m always worried about what’s gonna happen. And what this 500 dollars a month has allowed me to do, for such a significant amount of time, it has allowed me to get out of survival mode.”
But even with the addition of Rise Up payments, problems persisted. More than 40 percent of families had incomes that were below the federal poverty level, Addo said. Six months after payments ended, 64.5 percent of respondents reported still experiencing at least one form of material hardship – meaning they were unable to meet a basic need, such as paying the full amount of rent – and 77.3 percent of respondents reported facing greater financial hardship after the program ended, Addo said.
“I’m not going to tell you that I’m fine,” said another participant, who put the monthly payments toward her savings, which she relied on while she was unemployed. “I’ve already spent my savings, and hopefully things will get better … I have to pay for my phone and my daughter’s … and the electricity and gas, which is what I still have left for this month… Because it’s been seven months and what I had saved — as I told you — I’ve already spent it.”
Tina Alu, CEOC’s executive director, praised the program, saying it allowed people to maintain their dignity.
“There was one application that was done in a partnership with families and they had stable assistance for 18 months,” Alu said. “And they didn’t have to keep asking for things.”
So much, yet not enough
Still, Alu and Shakeela Darden, CEOC’s financial empowerment manager, urged city leaders to allocate any extra money to establishing a program similar to Rise Up.
“The reality is when you don’t have money . . . it feels a little different,” Darden said. “We know that there is a lot of wealth here but there is also a lot of need.”
City Manager Yi-An Huang said that he has complicated feelings about the report’s results. “I really believe we do so much for lower-income families in this community,” he said. “And yet, it’s so much not enough.”
Huang said that it is important for the city to be clear on what issues the city can actually solve. He said, for instance, that the city can address the cost of child care, but not the overall financial burden of being a low-income parent.
“There is a policy priority that we need to see reflected in the programs that we put out,” Huang said.
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