SAULT STE. MARIE — Starting this month, new parents in the EUP will be able to get help in the form of cash each month.
Rx Kids is the first community-wide cash prescription program for babies and pregnant women in the country, and it just opened for enrollment in the EUP.
During pregnancy, expecting mothers will receive $1,500. After birth, the parents can receive $500 a month for six months. This applies to any child born on or after March 1 in Alger, Chippewa, Luce, Mackinac and Schoolcraft counties.
The program was created to help new and expecting parents in the most direct way possible, by giving them cash with no strings attached.
The reason behind the program is to fight poverty affecting new families. According to Rx Kids, the time right before a child is born and the child’s first year of life is when income loss and poverty spikes are the most common.
Rx Kids is designed to invest directly with the families in need, instead of putting money into other programs that might only help some.
“It is a program that’s built on extensive global and national evidence that when you give families with small children cash, it prevents poverty and allows them to be healthier,” said Mona Hanna, founder of Rx Kids.
According to Rx Kids, the top five items that cash is spent in are baby supplies, food, rent, utility bills and transportation.
Rx Kids officials have also noted that being exposed to poverty and other adversity early in life can lead to lifelong consequences for children. This problem was exacerbated after some government assistance programs were cut following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“During COVID in 2021, we did something called the expanded Child Tax Credit where pretty much all families with kids got unconditional cash on a monthly basis to help take care of their families and meet their needs. That dropped child poverty to the lowest level ever,” said Hanna. “After the Child Tax Credit was not renewed after 2021, we saw that we really needed more solutions to address so many health problems that our urban and rural communities face.”
The program began in Flint in January 2024. The Flint program has an almost 100% uptake rate, meaning almost every new family in the city has been helped by the program.
Over $6 million has been given to over 1,400 families in the Flint area. According to Rx Kids, data shows that it has had a significant impact on improving financial stability and health outcomes for moms and babies.
“Child poverty is, essentially, a policy choice, and for so long we blamed individuals for their circumstances, and it’s not their fault,” said Hanna. “When you do something like this, for a whole area, it allows us to shift the solution and address the systemic issues that make it really hard to grow up in certain ZIP codes.”
The program is funded mostly by donations. It has received over $100 million from organizations across the state to help build up the program. The Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians and other local community groups have made donations to Rx Kids.
More information about the program and applications can be found at RxKids.org.
— Contact Brendan Wiesner: [email protected]
发表回复