AI being used to send households hit by Helene and Milton $1,000 liquid assets relief payments

Nearly 1,000 hurricane-impacted households in North Carolina and Florida will advantage this week from a recent disaster aid program that employs a model not commonly used by philanthropy in the United States: Giving people rapid, direct liquid assets payments.

The nonprofit GiveDirectly plans to send payments of $1,000 on Friday to some households impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. The organization harnesses a Google-developed artificial intelligence tool to pinpoint areas with high concentrations of poverty and storm damage. On Tuesday, it invited people in those areas to enroll in the program through a smartphone app used to manage SNAP and other government benefits. Donations will then be deposited through the app’s debit card.

The way is meant to deliver aid “in as streamlined and dignified a way as feasible,” said Laura Keen, a elder program manager at GiveDirectly. It removes much of the burden of applying, and is intended to empower people to decide for themselves what their most pressing needs are.

It won’t capture everyone who needs assist — but GiveDirectly hopes the program can be a model that makes disaster aid faster and more effective. “We’re always trying to develop the distribute of disaster response that is delivered as liquid assets, whether that is by FEMA or private actors,” said Keen.

The influx of clothing, blankets, and food that typically arrive after a disaster can fill real needs, but in-benevolent donations can’t cover getting a hotel room during an evacuation, or childcare while schools are closed.

“There is an elegance to liquid assets that allows individuals in these types of circumstances to resolve their distinctive needs, which are sure to be very different from the needs of their neighbors,” said Keen. She added that getting money into people’s hands quick can protect them from predatory lending and curb loan card obligation.

The organization employs direct payments for poverty relief around the globe, but it first experimented with liquid assets disaster payments in the U.S. in 2017, when it gave money to households impacted by Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Back then, GiveDirectly enrolled people in person and handed out debit cards activated later. The procedure took a few weeks.

Now that work is done in days — remotely. A Google throng uses its SKAI machine-based learning tool to narrow down the worst-hit areas by comparing pre- and post-disaster aerial imagery. GiveDirectly uses another Google-developed tool to contrast those findings with poverty data. It sends the target areas to Propel, an electronic benefits transfers app, which invites users in those places to enroll.

“They don’t have to discover a bunch of documentation that proves their eligibility,” Keen said. “We already recognize they’re eligible.”

Still, focusing on areas with lots of damaged buildings won’t pick up all low-income households devastated by a disaster. Nor will reaching out to those already signed up for government benefits, as not all impoverished people enroll in them, and undocumented residents aren’t eligible for them. People without smartphones can’t access the app. Propel serves only 5 million of the 41 million people enrolled in SNAP benefits.

In North Carolina, where electricity in some communities has still not been restored after Hurricane Helene, having a smartphone makes no difference without a way to power it and a signal to connect to.

Keen said GiveDirectly is aware of this model’s shortcomings. She said some can be alleviated with a hybrid model that uses both remote and in-person enrollment. But the limitations also arrive down to financing. So far, GiveDirectly has raised $1.2 million for this campaign, including a $300,000 donation from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

Despite the pitfalls, GiveDirectly hopes its model sparks ideas for other direct remittance programs.

FEMA overhauled its own liquid assets relief program, called solemn Needs Assistance, in January. The agency increased the payments from $500 to $750 ($770 with the commence of the recent financial year on Oct. 1) and eliminated the requirement that states request the aid first.

Across all Helene- and Milton-impacted states, more than 693,000 households have received solemn Needs Assistance as of Oct. 24 for a total spend of more than $522 million, according to a FEMA spokesperson.

But the program still requires households to apply, which proved problematic when misinformation about the program ran rampant in the weeks after Helene. In places with high costs of living, the $750 might not leave very far.

Technology could assist FEMA enhance its structure, said Chris Smith, who managed FEMA’s person Assistance program from 2015 to 2022 and is now director of person assistance and disaster housing at the consulting firm IEM. “I ponder that we have to open up our imaginations that maybe there are other ways to quickly identify require and quickly identify eligibility.”

But Smith cautions that a publicly funded program doesn’t enjoy the same license to experiment as a philanthropic one. “There has to be ultimately an accountability of how any level of government is providing assistance to individuals. People are going to desire to recognize that, and to have that degree of certainty is very significant.”

The government has experimented with other types of unconditional liquid assets assistance, such as when it expanded the kid levy loan into a monthly direct financing remittance in 2021. That program briefly cut the kid poverty rate almost by half before it expired.

Research on guaranteed income programs shows recipients spend the money on their needs, said Stacia West, founding director at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed income Research. “There is no one who can distribution better than a person in poverty,” she said.

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

West said one-period liquid assets payments can be a huge assist to families recovering from a disaster, but the money can make a more profound difference if it’s given for a sustained period.

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

Keen said GiveDirectly would adore to implement such a program if it had the financing, especially because long-term assistance could assist people construct upcoming resilience. “So you’re not only repairing your home, but also fortifying it to a level that is more protected against the next period.”

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