MLK's Atlanta neighborhood trying new way to fight poverty: direct cash payments

old fourth ward
A guaranteed income pilot is launching this spring in Atlanta's Old Fourth Ward. (Courtesy Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund)

In Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward, a $13 million initiative is launching this spring to give cash directly to people in poverty. It’s an idea called guaranteed income. 

Pilots are already underway around the country, but it’s no coincidence this trial is happening in the Old Fourth Ward, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born, preached and is now buried.

“He knew our civic rights were hollow if we don’t also have economic rights to back those up, so among the reforms he advocated for was a guaranteed income,” says Hope Wollensack, executive director of the Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund, the group helping run the “In Her Hands” guaranteed income pilot.