Could no-strings-attached ‘cash prescriptions’ slash poverty among Michigan’s youngest?

• Rx Kids, a program which grew out of Flint and now operates in Kalamazoo and parts of the eastern U.P., gives families $1,500 mid-pregnancy and $500 a month up to a year of the infant’s life.
• The program, led by Flint pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna, is expanding quickly in Michigan.

In the Upper Peninsula, Jackie Tasker-Wilson has to drive downstate several times a month to see her doctors for her high-risk pregnancy — trips that set her and her partner back a couple hundred dollars each appointment. That’s money she can’t spend on rent, food or necessities for the baby. 

Kayla Wychopen, also in the U.P., recently gave birth and is living in transitional housing with her boyfriend. She said she constantly worries about finding a permanent place to live and affording food and all of the things her baby will need.

A fast-growing program, Rx Kids, might help them both and hundreds of other families in the state. Rx Kids, which grew out of Flint, is designed to tackle infant poverty by providing so-called “cash prescriptions” — $1,500 mid-pregnancy and then $500 a month up to a year of the baby’s life. 

Earlier this year, the program, led by Flint pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna, expanded to Kalamazoo and parts of the Upper Peninsula. Pontiac and cities in Wayne County are slated to get their own versions in the next few months. Ypsilanti could get its own program, too, if the city can raise enough money. 

Rx Kids is among dozens of programs across the country experimenting with providing direct cash payments to people with the greatest need. As millions of dollars flow directly to families in the state, Michigan could be poised to help answer the question of whether cash in hand does indeed make a dent on child poverty. 

In recent months, a reporter with the Free Press and BridgeDetroit talked to pregnant women about the program, as well as maternal health nurses in the U.P., and state legislators in the regions where the program is expanding. 

Pregnant women, from the U.P. to Kalamazoo, seem to think Rx Kids will make a difference, saying they’d use the money on diapers, formula, wipes and to save. 

Nurses who visit pregnant women say extra cash each month can relieve financial stress for families worried about paying for essentials like rent, transportation and food.

Bipartisan lawmakers in Michigan saw early promise in the program and said they’re watching for a range of outcomes that would spell success, from increased birth rates and school enrollment to improvements in child development and health.

“Every hour, every day that a baby is born into and grows up in poverty is a failure on all of us. It is a failure on society, because we can do better,” Hanna, director of Rx Kids and associate dean of public health at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, said during the announcement of Rx Kids in Pontiac. She leads Rx Kids with Luke Shaefer, head of the University of Michigan’s Poverty Solutions initiative.

In the U.P., transportation hurdles hinder moms

In the northernmost part of the state, where tourism drives the economy, there are lulls in employment during the offseason, making income less certain. Housing and heating can be tough to afford as residents already struggle with transportation and access to health care, county health department leaders and maternal health nurses told the Free Press. 

“A lot of families are living paycheck to paycheck, and there’s no cushion. So if an emergency arises, they are really hurting. They are really looking for support,” said Karen Senkus, health officer for the Chippewa County Health Department. 

Now, they may have that extra help. 

Families with newborns or babies on the way in five U.P. counties — Chippewa, Luce, Mackinac, Alger and Schoolcraft — can apply for the Rx Kids program. Moms can get $1,500 mid-pregnancy and then $500 for the first six months of their baby’s life. Rx Kids has given $288,500 to 180 families so far, as of April 22.

It would be a big help for 24-year-old Tasker-Wilson, who said she struggles to save. 

Each month, she and her boyfriend have about $400 a month remaining after all their expenses, from bills to paying off debt and other costs, she said. It has been expensive preparing for the new baby. 

She has had trouble finding work while pregnant. Tasker-Wilson has applied for child care, restaurant and housekeeping jobs, only to get rejected. Employers told her they don’t want her to work for only a few months, only to quit, or they don’t offer maternity leave, she said. 

“We’re basically still on one income. It’s definitely difficult,” she said in late March. Her boyfriend works as a driller. 

• In Chippewa County, where Tasker-Wilson lives, more than a quarter of children under 5 years old live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. That’s higher than the 19% of kids under 5 years old living in poverty across the state, but available data at the county or city level can be limited, so estimates are not as precise.
• Nearly half of households in the county fell below the United Way’s ALICE threshold in 2022. The ALICE measure (which stands for asset limited, income constrained, employed) considers households earning above the federal poverty level but still struggling to afford the basics.

Nurses the Free Press followed in the U.P. say families are struggling with the basics — housing, health care, work, child care and transportation. 

Nurse Monica Eriksen, who works for the LMAS (Luce, Mackinac, Alger and Schoolcraft) District Health Department, said she sees poverty every day, childhood or otherwise. It looks like not having enough money to change diapers or neglecting medical needs because of a scarcity mindset.

In February, Eriksen visited Marie Woosck in front of her home, remote and tucked away in snowy Munising. Woosck’s high-risk pregnancy had been an emotional roller coaster, the 22-year-old said at the time. Part of what worried her was the distance to her hospital — about an hour away.

“Up here, it’s a big struggle for us pregnant women to find the right care we need,” Woosck said.

Eriksen, who is also Woosck’s doula, ended up driving her to the hospital at midnight in early March, a few days before her scheduled C-section. Woosck was worried about having her baby in the car because it would have been risky for her to have a vaginal birth. 

“I was terrified,” she said about the long drive to the hospital while in labor.

Over in Sault Ste. Marie in early February, Christy Curtis, a nurse with the Chippewa County Health Department, checked in on Wychopen and spoke to her about subsidized housing and how her pregnancy had been going. 

Curtis tries to work with moms as early in their pregnancy as possible because later they may not have time to access housing and food resources, she said. Women struggle to work after giving birth and find child care. There are long wait lists for subsidized housing and rent costs have gone up.

“You’ve got these families that are barely making it,” Curtis said.

Before giving birth to her baby girl in late April, Wychopen, who is living in transitional housing, wanted her own home before her daughter was expected to arrive.

“I don’t really want to raise a baby in a room,” Wychopen, 26, said. 

It would be a big relief, expectant moms said, to have the extra money to spend on utilities, child care, formula, diapers and wipes. 

“There’s a lot of poverty up here that people just don’t see,” said Republican state Sen. John Damoose, who represents part of the U.P. and the northern Lower Peninsula.

In Kalamazoo, housing is a ‘desperate need’

Downstate in Kalamazoo, Kiara Wenman applied for the Kalamazoo Rx Kids program because living and food costs have skyrocketed lately for her and her partner. 

The 22-year-old, a Starbucks supervisor, said she lives comfortably but not enough to save or cover a sudden financial shock — that’s where the cash would make a difference. She said she’d spend half to save to buy a home, and the rest on groceries or needs for her baby boy, due in late April. 

“Whether there’s a car issue, whether there’s (an) insurance claim, anything that could possibly happen, I feel like that would give us a setback. But with the program, I feel like that would keep us still on track when emergencies happen,” Wenman said in March. By the end of the month, she received a $1,500 deposit, which she tucked away in her savings. 

• In the city of Kalamazoo, where about a third of kids under 5 years old live in poverty, expectant moms can get $1,500 mid-pregnancy and then $500 the first 12 months of their infant’s life. 
• Fifty-three percent of households in the city also fell below the ALICE threshold. 

The Kalamazoo program has, as of April 22, distributed $528,500 and enrolled 324 families.

Poverty and infant deaths are linked, said Jameca Patrick-Singleton, executive director of Cradle Kalamazoo and vice president of community health for the YWCA Kalamazoo. In Kalamazoo County, Black babies are significantly more likely to die than white babies.

“When you’re talking about a program like Rx Kids, it helps to address some of those social determinants of health. Why? Because you’re talking about no-strings-attached funding, and so people are able to use money for transportation, for food, for rent, whatever they need, in that moment that they need. It’ll help families to combat some of that poverty, it’ll help moms, particularly Black moms,” Patrick-Singleton said. 

A common theme among infants who die in Kalamazoo County is economic instability, said Dr. Aaron Davies, chief of quality for the Bronson Medical Group. 

“People who are doubling up, who are sharing couches, trying to figure out how to meet their basic needs around housing, that leads to unsafe sleep situations where infants are being put down on couches and other places where we know they’re at a higher risk of having unsafe sleep-related death,” Davies said.

Families who can’t afford housing or are living out on the streets, cars and hotels, are co-sleeping because they don’t have a choice, Patrick-Singleton said. Quality, affordable housing is a “desperate need” in the community, she added.

Kalamazoo County needs 8,000 new units by 2030 to meet future demand, according to updated estimates from the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, which, in 2022, published a sweeping housing plan for the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners. What’s more, there are roughly 13,600 renters and homeowner households who spend more than half of their income on housing expenses, 2023 American Community Survey figures compiled by the Kalamazoo-based research institute show.

“We’ve seen babies die because of homelessness,” Patrick-Singleton said.

Flint mom: ‘I’m not stressed’

More than a year after launching in Flint, Rx Kids has stretched across the state, to rural and urban pockets, in its bid to rid Michigan of infant poverty, garnering tens of millions of dollars in public and private dollars as well as interest from lawmakers to propel its mission. 

In total, the program has raised more than $100 million. Backers include the Flint-based Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, among others. 

Meanwhile, over in Flint where the program first began, moms told the Free Press they used their money for rent and baby food — and it ultimately left them less stressed. 

Alexus Towner, who received $500 a month from April 2024 to March 2025, used her Rx Kids money for the apartment she rented after experiencing housing insecurity, when she lived in a shelter and, before that, with her mom. The birth of her youngest child by C-section was extremely difficult, she recalled.

After giving birth, Towner, 27, of Mount Morris, a city just north of Flint, said she had a lot on her plate. Her daughter, who has autism, had to repeat kindergarten. Towner didn’t have transportation. 

The Rx Kids program, which she applied to while living in Flint, gave her “so much more room to breathe,” she said. The majority of her monthly cash payments went to rent — the rest on her kids’ food, household products and other essentials.

Shalamar Reed was about seven months pregnant when she got into the Rx Kids program in Flint. She had been diagnosed with preeclampsia, a serious medical condition associated with high blood pressure.

Reed, who was put on bed rest in her first trimester, applied to the program because she had to quit her job as a direct care worker, she said. With the $1,500 lump sum, she purchased her daughter’s essentials: crib, car seat and stroller. 

She uses the $500 a month to buy formula, diapers and wipes. The 36-year-old Flint mom sees Rx Kids as extra help, giving her a boost when she may not have enough.

“When I run out of something, I’m not stressed,” she said in January.

This article was produced as part of a series for the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2024 Data Fellowship.

Contact Nushrat Rahman: [email protected]. Follow her on X: @NushratR.