Boston is appallingly unaffordable. Trial effort of no-strings-attached payments to families will be life-changing.
Yet, for too many children, Boston can be a pretty grim place. About one in four children in the city lives in poverty. And some 44 percent of single mothers live below the poverty line,
Those numbers describe damage that reaches far beyond the homes and shelters where those kids live, and way beyond childhood. They mean slower development and lower academic achievement, more anxiety and housing insecurity, diminished health and safety, more persistent generational disadvantages.
Curing those maladies is exponentially more expensive than preventing them in the first place. A bunch of research shows that
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All it takes is money, and not even that much of it. We saw during the pandemic what a difference a few hundred extra
dollars can do each month. In 2021, the expanded child tax credit halved the child poverty rate in this country. When Republicans forced its expiration, all of those kids
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We also know that giving struggling families a little money to spend as they see fit works, too. Cities all over the country, including
In pandemic New York, Holly Fogle ran her own experiment. She grew up in Appalachia on the border between Ohio and West Virginia, and her family knew struggle. She went to Wharton as a finance major and spent a career as a McKinsey consultant before starting her family foundation. The kind of philanthropy she'd been doing wasn't working fast enough during lockdown, when the unluckiest single mothers lived in isolation, beyond the reach of the government assistance that could have kept them afloat.
'These were families we deeply cared about, and the only thing we could do was get cash in their hands,' Fogle recalled. 'We quickly realized we were onto something.'
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Briana Drummer, 33, was working and on her way to a college degree in early 2024 when she became homeless after fleeing a domestic abuser. Shortly afterward, she discovered she was pregnant, and a social worker connected her with The Bridge Project. The extra money made all the difference, she said, allowing her to graduate from college, find an apartment, and pay for diapers and other supplies for her daughter. Now she is heading for a master's degree and a career in human resources.
'I am a young Black woman, I get judged before I even speak,' Drummer said. 'When The Bridge Project met me, there was no judgment. They just saw me as a mom and they trusted me to make the right decisions.'
If only the whole country ran like that. But it doesn't, so The Bridge Project now operates in six states. Usually, philanthropists and activists in those states raise money for the cash payments, and Fogle's operation administers the grants.
Now The Bridge Project is setting up in Boston. It's appalling that the city needs it, but for 250 struggling parents-to-be and their babies, it will be life-changing.
Recipients, chosen via a rolling lottery, will receive a one-time stipend of $1,125, and $750 per month for the first 15 months, then $375 each month for 21 months. The hope is that by then, the extra cash will have given them a route — a bridge — to stability.
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It's such an obviously smart way to lift people up — and this is such a terrifying time for anyone who cares about inequality, with Republicans in Washington rolling back decades of measures designed to make the country more just — that donors here have rallied, raising $5 million in grant money in short order. Philanthropists have been willing to 'lean in with a little bit more courageous generosity to do something very tangible,' said Emily Nielsen Jones,
Part of the appeal here is speed.
'This is moving at the right pace, the same pace at which all the chaos is coming down,' said Natanja Craig Oquendo, executive director of the Boston Women's Fund, and one of the people who was determined to bring The Bridge Project to Boston.
We shouldn't need to do this, but we do. Now, more than ever.
Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham can be reached at
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