The Mountain View Elevate MV pilot program gives direct cash payments of $500 per month to166 randomly selected eligible extremely low income Mountain View residents that will elevate their basic income to provide more financial security.
The pilot program sets itself apart from other direct relief programs by providing unrestricted financial assistance to the most vulnerable in our community. This means that participants in the pilot are empowered to choose how the assistance best meets the basic needs of their family and is not tied to conditions.
Elevate MV is operated through the City’s partner Community Services Agency (CSA), supported by YMCA, working with the payment processor, Community Financial Resources. This pilot program is a research study and will be a part of a national study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania Center for Guaranteed Income Research along with participants from other cities across the State and nation.
The Elevate MV pilot program includes a comprehensive Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) survey conducted by the Center for Guaranteed Income Research (CGIR) at the University of Pennsylvania to understand the effects of providing an unconditional guaranteed income. CGIR will provide the City of Mountain View with a final report of all findings from the Elevate MV pilot 12 months after the final collection round, which occurs six months after the final disbursement in December of 2024. This means the comprehensive report will not be available until 2025.
However, the City will share ongoing updates about the pilot throughout its duration. For example, the City will have an online dashboard showing the demographic and anonymized spending data of program participants. Through a partnership with CGIR and the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, Stanford Basic Income Lab will be the provider of Mountain View’s dashboard. At this time, we anticipate the first data available online at MountainView.gov/ElevateMV in the spring of 2023.
Lastly, the City will have ongoing media engagement during the duration of the pilot with a cohort of recipients who are supported to share their stories on a purely voluntary basis about how the $500 per month in direct cash, impacts their lives. The cohort will be ongoing from approximately December 2022 to December 2024.
Implementation Partners
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Research Partner
Support and Resource Partners
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If you are in need of emergency financial, or other basic assistance like food, contact 650-968-0836, or visit csacares.org
Online: AskMV Customer Service Portal
Email: GBI@mountainview.gov