AI is being used to send some households cash relief payments

The nonprofit GiveDirectly plans to send $1,000 payments on Friday to some families affected by Hurricanes Helen and Milton. The organization uses an artificial intelligence tool developed by Google to identify areas with high concentrations of poverty and storm damage. On Tuesday, she called on people in those areas to sign up for the program through the smartphone app used to administer SNAP and other government benefits. Donations will then be deposited through the app’s debit card.

The goal of this approach is to provide aid “as streamlined and generous as possible,” said Laura Kane, senior program director at GiveDirectly. It removes much of the burden of applying, and aims to empower people to decide for themselves what their most pressing needs are.

The program won’t include everyone who needs help — but GiveDirectly hopes the program will be a model that makes disaster aid faster and more effective. “We’re always trying to increase the share of disaster response that is provided in cash, whether it’s by FEMA or private sector players,” Kane said.

The influx of clothes, blankets and food that typically arrive after a disaster can meet real needs, but in-kind donations cannot cover the cost of a hotel room during an evacuation, or childcare while schools are closed.

“There is an elegance to cash that allows individuals in such circumstances to meet their own unique needs, which are sure to be very different from those of their neighbors,” Keane said. Getting money into people’s hands quickly can protect them from predatory lending and reduce credit card debt, she added.

The organization uses direct payments to alleviate poverty around the world, but first experimented with cash disaster payments in the United States in 2017, when it provided money to families affected by Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. At that time, GiveDirectly registered people in person and distributed debit cards to them that were later activated. The process took a few weeks.

Now this work is being done in days – remotely. The Google team uses the machine learning tool SKAI to narrow down the most affected areas by comparing aerial images from before and after the disaster. GiveDirectly uses another tool developed by Google to compare these results with poverty data. It sends the targeted areas to Propel, an online benefits transfer application, which invites users in those locations to sign up.

“They don’t have to find a bunch of documents proving their eligibility,” Kane said. “We already know they are qualified.”

However, focusing on areas with many damaged buildings will not capture all low-income households devastated by the disaster. Those who have already registered for government benefits will not be contacted, as not all poor people enroll and undocumented residents are not eligible for them. People without smartphones cannot access the app. Propel serves only 5 million of the 22 million households enrolled in SNAP benefits.

In North Carolina, where Electricity has not yet been restored in some communities After Hurricane Helen, it no longer made any difference to have a smartphone without a way to operate it and a signal to connect to it.

GiveDirectly is aware of the shortcomings of this model, Kane said. Some could be mitigated through a hybrid model that uses remote and in-person registration, she said. But the limitations are also related to financing. To date, GiveDirectly has raised $1.2 million for this campaign, including a $300,000 donation from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

Despite the risks, GiveDirectly hopes its model will spark ideas for other direct payment programs.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) overhauled its cash relief program, called Critical Needs Assistance, in January. The agency increased payments from $500 to $750 ($770 at the start of the new fiscal year on October 1) and eliminated the requirement that states request aid first.

Across all states affected by Hurricanes Helen and Milton, more than 693,000 households received assistance for serious needs as of Oct. 24 for a total spending of more than $522 million, according to a Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesperson.

But the program still requires families to submit applications, which has proven to be a problem when… Incorrect information about the program It spread in the weeks after Helen. In places where the cost of living is high, $750 may not be much.

Technology could help FEMA improve its system, said Chris Smith, who ran FEMA’s Individual Assistance Program from 2015 to 2022 and is now director of Individual Assistance and Disaster Housing at consulting firm IEM. “I think we have to open our imaginations about the possibility of other ways to quickly identify needs and quickly determine eligibility.”

But Smith cautions that a publicly funded program does not have the same license to experiment as a charitable program. “There ultimately has to be accountability for how any level of government provides assistance to individuals. People will want to know that, and it is very important to have that degree of certainty.”

The government has experimented with other types of unconditional cash aid, such as when Expand the child tax credit to a monthly direct deposit payment in 2021. This program briefly cut the child poverty rate by nearly half before it expired.

Research on guaranteed income programs shows that recipients spend the money on their needs, said Stacia West, founding director of the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at the University of Pennsylvania. “No one can budget better than a poor person,” she said.

In a study tracking spending across 9,000 participants in more than 30 guaranteed income programs in the United States, the Guaranteed Income Research Center found that the majority of the money is spent on retail goods, food, groceries and transportation.

One-time cash payments can be a big help to families recovering from a disaster, but the money can make a more profound difference if given over an extended period, West said.

This has happened in two American disasters. In 2016, Dolly Parton funded a program that provided $1,000 a month for six months to people in Tennessee who lost their homes in the Great Smoky Mountains wildfires. Maui People’s Fund, a program sponsored by Oprah and Dwayne Johnson, 8,100 adults affected by 2023 Maui wildfires given $1,200 per month for six months.

Kane said GiveDirectly would like to implement such a program if it received funding, especially since long-term assistance could help people build resilience for the future. “So, you’re not only repairing your home, you’re also fortifying it to a level that’s more protective against the next time.”