Nonprofit to hand out DC taxpayer cash to families in fight to stop kids ditching school

(Daily Callers News Foundation) – A Washington, D.C., nonprofit is launching a program to shell out thousands of dollars of taxpayer money in part so parents will send their kids to school, according to WTOP News.

The pilot program managed by Mother’s Outreach Network will distribute $2,400 each to 15 selected families with kids at the Social Justice School in D.C. over three months through debit cards in an effort to ease poverty and fight truancy, according to WTOP. Mother’s Outreach Network received a federal grant from the D.C. Attorney General’s Office to help implement the program, according to an April press release from the D.C. Attorney General’s office.

“What we hope to do is demonstrate the importance of providing parents with economic security so they don’t have to struggle to get their children to school, and they don’t have to struggle to keep food on the table,” Melody Webb, executive director of Mother’s Outreach Network, told WTOP. “Our larger initiative really is to address poverty and to address the family instability that results from poverty that sometimes leads to unhealthy behaviors and truancy.”

The income would be unconditional, meaning whether or not students actually attend school would not affect the funding, according to the Social Justice School’s website. The first payments are expected to start this month, according to WTOP News.

“‘Guaranteed income’ refers to a regular cash payment accessible to certain members of a community, with no strings attached (i.e., unconditional),” the Social Justice School wrote. “Guaranteed income redistributes wealth to people who need it most and who’ve historically been impacted by lack of opportunities — largely people of color.”

The program targets those who are currently or at risk for involvement with the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA), which handles truancy cases, according to the Social Justice School’s website. Chronic truancy in D.C. has risen from 21% in the 2015–2016 school year to 37% in the 2022–2023 year, according to the most recent D.C. attendance report.

The Mother’s Outreach Network is a left-leaning “racial justice” nonprofit that “supports Black mothers in advancing Black family preservation, economic security, and racial justice by transforming government income and child welfare laws, policies, and practices from punitive to empowering,” according to their website. They created the D.C. Guaranteed Income Coalition, which aims to expand their guaranteed income programs, calling on the D.C. City Council to invest $13.5 million into guaranteed income programs that would provide “cash to 750 households for three years at $500 a month — operated by 5 to 10 participating organizations serving populations that face diverse social and economic circumstances,” according to the coalition’s platform.

Mother’s Outreach Network, the D.C. AG’s office and the Social Justice School did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.