As part of a slate of announcements Lightfoot is making to mark the two-year anniversary of her Solutions Towards Ending Poverty Summit, the city is revealing who can apply and how they’ll be chosen.

Applicants must be Chicago residents over 18 years old, have experienced economic hardship related to COVID-19 and have a household income at or below 250% of the federal poverty level. That makes the program threshold $57,575 for a household of three. Applications, which will go live in April, can be found here.

Participants will be chosen by lottery. The city is still choosing nonprofits to administer the program, conduct outreach and help people enroll. The Inclusive Economy Lab at the University of Chicago will “evaluate the impact of the pilot on participants and generate lessons learned around implementation,” the city said.

Two other cash assistance programs aimed at domestic workers (a $4.5 million fund offering $500 one-time relief) and those not eligible for previous federal stimulus rounds (a $10.7 million program also offering $500 one-time payments) will also go live this spring, the city says in a statement. Combined, the programs “will benefit over 30,000 Chicagoans disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.”

Lightfoot’s first STEP Summit in February 2020 aimed for solutions to ending poverty in Chicago in a generation. That effort landed just before the COVID pandemic struck. At today’s event, the mayor also planned to announce further fine and fee reforms designed to help low-income motorists pay off traffic ticket debts: Drivers will only be responsible for the original ticket cost from the last three years, with no additional costs, and new tickets will be assessed at half the original fine amount and won’t incur any new fees or penalties until 2024. 

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