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ST. LOUIS — A city program paying lower-income families $500 a month for a year and a half is about to begin, kicking off a signature priority for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones aimed at lifting up the city’s poor.

The money is going to hundreds of city households, Jones said Tuesday, and will also help build stronger neighborhoods and prevent the root causes of crime.

“St. Louis’ guaranteed basic income will give hundreds of St. Louis families the resources they need to lift themselves out of poverty, giving them a strong foundation to grow and to thrive,� Jones said at a press conference to lay out the application process.

Such experiments have played out across the country, with some success: The federal government temporarily expanded the child tax credit to send families up to $300 per month for each kid during the pandemic, and researchers said it cut child poverty in half. Results from an early experiment in Stockton, California, suggested monthly cash payments helped stabilize households and made people more likely to get full-time jobs by freeing up time to pursue them.

And Jones said a round of one-time $500 checks here in 2021 and 2022 that went to more than 9,000 households helped cover essentials: groceries, utilities and rent. (Residents converted more than a third of it, however, to cash at an ATM, or transferred it to another bank account, rendering those dollars untraceable.)

The programs together add St. Louis to a growing list of cities experimenting with guaranteed basic income that already includes , and , and smaller cities like , Alabama, and , South Carolina.

The modern push for a guaranteed income is decades old. In the 1960s, the concept found advocates in the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Black Panther Party and President Richard Nixon, who actually got a plan through the U.S. House before it stalled in the Senate. More recently, it got a high-profile boost from 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who ran on promises of a $1,000 per month payment to adult U.S. citizens. And it’s been catching fire with progressive Democratic mayors.

St. Louis’ program was approved by the Board of Aldermen late last year, albeit with some criticism from aldermen who questioned how it would be administered.

The program is now expected to send money to roughly 540 households in the city with parents or guardians of children attending city public schools, including charter schools. Eligibility is limited to those making 170% of the or less — about $42,000 for a family of three.

The city is putting $5 million in federal pandemic aid toward the program, including $1 million for administrative expenses.

Jack Dorsey, the St. Louis native and billionaire co-founder of tech firms Twitter and Square, is also contributing $1 million to the program.

Jones announced on Tuesday where those interested can find information about who is eligible. Applications will be open Oct. 23 to Nov. 1.

The city will start sending the money, on debit cards, in December.