Young parents in Baltimore are getting $1,000 a month, no strings attached, a deal so good some 'thought it was a scam'

• The Baltimore Young Families Success Fund provides 200 young parents $1,000 a month.
• The fund is part of a pilot project meant to show the impact of a guaranteed income.

At one point, she and her fiance were living in a car. She was pregnant and they were sharing the space with her young daughter, who has developmental issues that require special care. It was her most valued possession, that vehicle, and she was on the verge of losing it. "It was freezing," she added, and her family had nowhere else to go.

Then Tazhane Jordan told Insider that she was offered a lifeline. She had just received her GED, the equivalent of a high school diploma, when she learned about a new program that frankly sounded too good to be true: For 2 years, she could receive $1,000 every month to spend however she liked, with literally no conditions attached; also Shaquille O'Neal would be involved somehow (a company associated with the basketball star would distribute the cash).

The Baltimore Young Families Success Fund turned out to be totally legit, a guaranteed-income pilot project sponsored by the city and the nonprofit CASH Campaign of Maryland that is intended to show the impact of giving straight-up cash to Americans struggling with poverty. It's one of dozens of such pilots taking place across the country, meant to answer the question: What would happen if we just trusted people who need money — people experiencing homelessness, teenagers raising kids of their own — to spend it as they wish?

Jordan was one of 200 young parents, between the ages of 18 and 24, selected to participate in the Baltimore program, out of a pool of more than 4,000 applicants. Her first payment came in August 2022. Friends were definitely "curious," she said, and some even found it a bit "questionable." But there was no questioning the impact, she told Insider: The money "helped me keep my life afloat."

First off, it allowed her to keep that car. Jordan, now 25, initially used the $1,000 to cover her lease payments. She then moved into a proper house, where she lives with her 5-year-old daughter, her three-month-old son, and her fiancé, who also has two children, ages 10 and 6, sharing the parenting duties with his former partner.

What she appreciates most, Jordan said, is that she's given the power to decide for herself what her family needs. "People can always use resources for specific things, but sometimes, you know, you just need a little money for random things: gasoline, toilet paper, baby formula, things like that," she said

Tonaeya Moore, director of policy for the CASH Campaign of Maryland, said that's the whole point. Her group provides free financial literacy education to those who participate in the guaranteed-income pilot project, but it doesn't make anyone enroll.

"No strings attached — no strings attached at all. People know what they need to support their family," Moore told Insider. In this age of cryptocurrency and robocalls, she said, "even our participants, after being fully onboarded and sharing their information with us, they still thought it was a scam."

Surveys suggest that participants are all spending money on the same general things. "It's always bills, car [payments], groceries, childcare," Moore said. Even if that weren't the case, she argued that no one should sit in judgment of a person who used the funds for some home electronics, for example, or a video game for their kid. "We're not going to tell you that you have to be spending your money on X, Y, and Z," she said. "You do what you think is best."

No one's getting rich, either, she added, off a grand a month. "Most of our families, a lot of them, even after the thousand dollars, they still need a lot of help, so no one's taking advantage," Moore said. "We had one participant, she was really excited: It was her son's third birthday, and she's like, 'For the first time, I'm going to be able to plan a small birthday celebration for my son.' You should be able to do that. If you need to buy a TV or something for your home and for your children, you should also be able to do that too without backlash."

Jordan, who is pursuing a career in medical care for children with disabilities, said she appreciates that mentality.

"I'm happy and ecstatic that they did have enough trust in us to let us have the money freely, without stipulations and strings," she said. It's given her a cushion and kept her family off the streets.

As for anyone who might think she and others are not deserving of a handout? "I would just say that it doesn't matter if you're hard-working or not," Jordan said. Especially in a city like Baltimore, where one in five people live below the federal poverty line, "Everybody can use help."