Alexandria Recurring Income for Success and Equity (ARISE), is the City of Alexandria’s guaranteed income pilot study. ARISE will give a $500.00 monthly payment to 170 participants for 24 months. Funding for ARISE comes from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) passed by Congress and signed into law by the President in March 2021.

Guaranteed Income is a cash payment, provided monthly with “no strings attached” – meaning participants have the freedom to choose how to spend the money as they see fit.

Eligibility criteria include:

• City of Alexandria resident
• 18 years and older
• Household income at or below 50% of Area Median Income (AMI). Below is a chart showing 50 percent AMI by household size. If an applicant’s household is at or below the number listed for their household size, they are eligible to apply. Household income includes the total income for all household members 18 years and older. Income is money earned from working plus cash benefits such as SSI, SSDI, TANF, and Child Support.
  *Household defined as people who live together and share meals

There is no work or citizenship requirement.

Participants selected for the pilot will receive $500.00 monthly for 24 months.

A link to the online application will be active October 31 at 9 a.m. EST through November 9, 2022 at 11:59 p.m. on the ARISE home page. There is no advantage to applying early. All qualified applications received will have an equal chance of being randomly selected.

There are no documents required at the time of application. The application will not require any documents to be uploaded or provided in any way.

During the onboarding process, ARISE program staff will work with participants to verify residency. Participation will not be denied due to lack of paperwork to prove residency. Participants can sign a self-attestation, confirming they live where they say the live.

The City of Alexandria is conducting a research study of ARISE to understand the impact cash payments to families with no strings attached has on wellbeing. Specifically, the City wants to understand what impact this monthly cash has on mental and physical health, employment, financial stability, food and housing security, a sense of hope and if there are children in the household, any impact on their outcomes. In order to know what impact the cash has, Abt Associates, the City’s research partner, must understand how participants feel about their wellbeing before receiving the cash. Thus, the application involves a baseline survey about the applicant’s wellbeing. Some questions may feel very personal. Questions can be skipped and as long as the application is submitted at the end of the survey, the application is considered complete.

The notification process will start December 1. Selected participants will be notified by phone, email and text, (as long as they provided contact information for each). They will need to respond within 14 days. If we do not hear back within 14 days, Abt Associates will randomly select someone else to participate. Due to this “rolling” notification process, people may not know until the end of December if they have been randomly selected to participate or not.

The best place to go for updates on the process is the ARISE website, where updates regarding the notification process will be posted. Once participants are notified, they will be given a one-on-one program onboarding where benefits counseling will be provided. ’

The first cash disbursements are scheduled to go out in the last week of January 2023. Information about dates will be posted here and communicated to potential participants and stakeholders as milestones are hit and the disbursement date is solidified. The City of Alexandria is partnering with MoCaFi as the financial distribution partner. MoCaFi will distribute the money on a debit-like card. Participants will not need to have a bank account. The card has impressive technology and participants will be able to access the cash in a variety of ways. Participants will get a full orientation of the card’s capabilities during onboarding.

People randomly selected to participate in ARISE will be given one-on-one benefits counseling where staff we be able to tell you exactly which benefits will be impacted and by how much. At that point, people will be given time to decide if they want to participate or not. If you are at all curious about guaranteed income and interested in applying, we encourage you to do so. You will receive one-on-one benefits counseling and you will have an opportunity to opt out of the ARISE program if you learn that it will not be a financial gain for you and your household. Due to limited staff capacity, benefits counseling will not be offered before or during the application process, only to those randomly selected to participate in ARISE.

It may impact some benefits. The Virginia Department of Social Services (VDSS) has given the Alexandria Department of Community and Human Services permission not to count the $500.00 cash payment as earned income and therefore it will not affect Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), Medicaid and Child Care Subsidy.

On the other hand, the cash payment will be counted as income in the eligibility determination for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Social Security Insurance, and therefore will impact those benefits.  

Prospective participants will receive counseling regarding the impact the cash payments will have on all benefits. If prospective participants choose to participate, they will sign an Informed Consent stating that they understand the risk at the time of selection and enrollment into the program.

According to the Social Security Administration (SSA) the cash payment will impact social security benefits, specifically those who have an income cap. We are not aware of any impact on the Child Tax Credit nor veteran pensions.

Only Abt Associates, the City’s research partner, and ARISE program staff will know who has been selected. The City does not disclose participant names or information, it will be kept confidential. It is also not entered into any City or State database. It is up to the participant to decide who the tell if they are randomly selected to participate.

No; the guaranteed income cash payment will be recognized as a “gift” on tax returns, rather than income. As a result, participants will not be required to pay taxes on this money and there will be no additional tax forms to fill out as a result of getting this money.

Yes, people are eligible to apply regardless of immigration status, as long as they meet the other eligibility criteria.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) is no longer applying the August 2019 Public Charge Final Rule which was introduced during the Trump Administration and expanded the range of benefits and other factors immigration officials could consider under the rule. Instead, USCIS has returned to applying the rule based on the 1999 public charge interim field guidance. This means that receiving Medicaid, SNAP, or federally subsidized housing no longer impacts applications for lawful permanent resident (green card) status. Therefore, cash payments made through ARISE also would not impact applications for lawful permanent resident status.

Only the City’s research partner, Abt Associates will see information provided by applicants in the application. The online application is done on their technological platform and they do not share specific information with the City. If you are not chosen to participate in either the participant group or the control group, your data will be erased by Abt.

 If you provide an email address in your application, you can leave your application part way through completing it and come back to it at a later time. If you do not provide an email address, you must complete the application in one sitting. In addition, if you do provide an email address, you will not receive the link immediately; rather, links are sent out twice a day, in the morning (around 9 am) and in the evening (around 4 or 5 pm). The link will be sent by Abt Associates, not the City of Alexandria.  

170 participants will be randomly selected by Abt Associates, the City’s research partner, by a computer application. As long as you qualify for the program and you successfully submit an application, you will have an equal chance as everyone else who qualifies and has submitted an application to be randomly selected. It does not matter where in the City you live, what your demographic information might be, when you submitted the application within the application period, or if you had help completing the application. It is like a lottery drawing, everyone who qualifies and has submitted an application has an equal chance at being randomly selected.

No, there is no minimum income requirement and no work requirement.

Such a scenario would not impact an individual or household’s enrollment in the pilot over the course of the 24-month program period. Once a person meets the initial eligibility, the cash is unconditional.

Yes.

Yes, you must be 18 years of age or older to apply, as of the day of your application.

Yes.

No, paper applications will not be available. Applications will be electronic only. The application is designed to be “mobile first,” meaning if you have a smart phone, you should be able to fill it out just fine. No uploading of documents will be required.

If you do not have access to the internet or technology, there will be several sites/locations around the City for people to access internet and technology to complete and submit an application. Those sites will be publicized in advance of the application process on this website and through community partners.

The City of Alexandria will be working with a research and evaluation firm, Abt Associates, who will be conducting an evaluation of the impact of receiving $500 a month on financial stability and wellbeing in participants’ lives. Because this is a study, applicants will be asked a series of personal questions in the application about their current finances, physical and mental health, employment and family lives. This survey may take applicants between 45 minutes – 1 hour to complete.

Because this is a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) evaluation, in addition to randomly selecting 170 participants to receive the $500 cash payment, researchers will also randomly select 210 people to be in the control group. The control group will be asked, and given a small cash incentive, to fill out surveys during the pilot so that the researchers can evaluate how the lives of participants receiving the cash payments are different in comparison to the lives of the control group who are not receiving the cash payments. Those differences can be attributed to the $500 monthly cash payment. That is how the impact of the money will be measured

The City is hoping to learn how a regular cash disbursement can impact the economic stability and well being of residents, when they are able to make their own decisions about how to spend the money. Any change in participants’ financial, physical or mental health and other quality of life indicators will allow us to understand how the money will impact people's lives.

Research from projects across the country has shown that guaranteed income is an effective way to combat several factors that are stifling economic mobility – the coronavirus pandemic and its immediate and long-term economic fallout -- and longstanding systemic racism. Over the last five years, the median income in the City of Alexandria has increased, yet the poverty rate stayed the same. This is why the City is pursuing a guaranteed income pilot. Known as Alexandria Recurring Income for Success and Equity (ARISE), Alexandria’s guaranteed income pilot gives participants more freedom, dignity, and self-determination to make choices for their financial well-being. The research shows that when given unrestricted payments, participants can create economic stability for themselves and their families. Direct financial supports have also been found to improve health, education, and child welfare outcomes. The pilot will be run by the City’s Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS).

Data from the United Way shows that for a family of four to cover basic costs of living in Alexandria, (basic costs for this calculation include: housing, childcare, food, transportation, health care, smart phone, miscellaneous and taxes) a family must make at least $101,076 annually. United Way calculates that thirty-seven percent of households in Alexandria live below the threshold necessary to meet their basic needs. The United Way terms this population ALICE – Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. ALICE is comprised of our caregivers, healthcare providers, educators, service industry workers, entrepreneurs, Uber drivers and more. They are also disproportionately people of color and have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

With racial equity a key priority for the City, the Guaranteed Income Pilot study allows the City an important opportunity to learn how financial security, mental and physical health, labor market participation, child outcomes and food and housing stability are impacted when people have the opportunity to cover their basic costs while making their own decisions about how an additional $500 each month can improve the wellness of themselves and their family.

of life indicators will allow us to understand how the money impacts peoples’ lives.

The City of Alexandria Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) and ACT for Alexandria will keep the community informed on any future community partner meetings and general community information sessions. You can sign up for email enews updates here[