The YouthNPower Direct Cash Transfer pilot will provide $1000 of unconditional cash per month for 12 months to 100 young people who have recently aged out of foster care in New York City. Our pilot is set to begin in early 2023 and applications are now OPEN. Click below to fill out our application or explore some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the program.
DCT Pilot Program Frequently Asked Questions
There are dozens of Direct Cash Transfers pilot projects operating in cities across the United States right now. Each program is directed towards a different population with different needs, but they all seek to provide a set amount of money that people can rely on for a set period of time. Our pilot focuses specifically on young people in New York City who have recently aged out of foster care and is rooted in the belief that young people are experts in their own lives. Therefore, our cash payments are unconditional and can be spent as our participants see fit. The goal of Direct Cash Transfer programs is to help alleviate disparities and inequalities for certain groups by creating a new kind of social safety net. Our pilot recognizes the struggles that many young people face as they exit foster care and believes that unconditional cash assistance could help better support our participants during this major life transition.
There are a lot of pilots and programs happening across the United States right now all with different names. You may have heard the term “Universal Basic Income” or “UBI” or “Guaranteed Income” before. Our pilot does not seek to serve everyone, but instead focuses specifically on young people in New York City who have recently aged out of foster care. Our participants will receive unconditional, recurring, and reliable monthly cash assistance for 12 months.
Our Direct Cash Transfer aims to specifically serve young people who have recently aged out of foster care in New York City. Therefore, in order to be eligible for our pilot, applicants must fit within a few criteria.
- Applicants must be between the ages of 18-22
- Applicants must have been in foster care in New York City at age 18 or older
- Applicants must have been out of foster care in New York City *or* Continuation of Care and Support (CCS21+) for at least 6 months at the time of their application
- Applicants must have “aged out” of foster care, meaning the last time they left foster care was not due to reunification, adoption, or guardianship.
If you are not sure whether you are eligible based on any of these above criteria, you can still submit an application.
We will select 100 participants by lottery from our pool of applicants to participate in our pilot.
Based on what we know about the diversity of identities and experiences among young people who age out of foster care in New York City, we want to do our best to make our pilot of 100 young people as representative as possible. This means that we will be randomly selecting our participants while ensuring that specific identities and experiences are well represented.
There are no restrictions on how participants spend their cash assistance. We believe that young people know their needs best and therefore know best how to manage their money.
No! Once you enroll in the pilot, your monthly cash assistance will be unconditional. This means that you are not required to do anything to continue to receive your money. Participants will be asked to complete 2 surveys (one at the start of the pilot, and one at the end) and to participate in other research activities for additional compensation.
No! All the money that participants receive is their own. It will not need to be paid back.
No! All cash payments received will be designated as charitable gifts and will not be taxed.
By participating in our pilot, we hope that young people will be given the cash assistance necessary to enhance their financial stability. Therefore, we want to ensure that all participants know the potential impacts that additional monthly cash assistance may have on the current benefits they receive and are able to make an informed decision about whether they want to enroll.
- All selected pilot participants will be provided with a benefits counseling session before they enroll. These sessions will help participants understand the impact that our monthly cash payments may have on their eligibility for other benefits they already receive.
- No participants will be officially enrolled in our pilot until they have completed a benefits counseling session.
- After completing their sessions, we hope that all selected participants will be better equipped to make an informed decision about their participation in our pilot.
We are working on flexible ways for participants to receive their payments, including CashApp, Venmo and PayPal, as well as checks and direct deposit.
Our pilot is set to launch in 2023. The pilot will run for 12 months.
We hope to make a case for guaranteed income for all young people aging out of foster care. We anticipate that our research findings will inform powerful recommendations on the impact of direct financial support for youth in the larger context of other transition policies, and on ways we should approach rigorous policy evaluation rooted in lived experience.
About The Application
No! There is no cost to apply for this pilot. If selected, there is no cost to enroll.
You will be asked two main types of questions in this application:
- Initial questions will assess your eligibility for our Direct Cash Transfer pilot. We want to ensure that applicants don’t spend unnecessary time filling out our application if they are not eligible. If at any point you answer a question that suggests you are ineligible, you will be notified and instructed how to proceed.
- The rest of our application will try to get a sense of who you are, where you come from, and some of your experiences both in and out of the foster care system. We want to make sure that our 100 selected participants are representative of the diversity of the larger population of young people who have transitioned out of care in New York City.
The application is a series of Yes/No and multiple-choice questions. We don’t imagine that it will take longer than 20-25 minutes to complete.
No! We will use the information you provide in your application to verify your eligibility and to select our 100 pilot participants. No identifying information you provide with us in your application will be shared publicly.
We will ultimately ask for social security numbers from the 100 people selected for our pilot. This is so that we can look at some city data that already exists about them. If you do not have a social security number, you can still participate in our pilot. If you do not know your social security number, you are not required to include it in your application.
Yes! This pilot is open to all eligible applicants regardless of citizenship status.
There is no set deadline to submit your application. The application window will be open for a minimum of 30 days and potentially longer depending on the number of applications we receive. We recommend submitting your application as soon as you can!
All applicants can expect to hear back from us by early 2023. We will notify all selected applicants about next steps for their enrollment in our pilot.
Applicants that have not been selected for the pilot will be notified about other ways that they can get involved in our project.
Have More Questions?
Want to learn more about YouthNPower?
Reach out to our Project Manager, Jose Perez
