It was just a matter of time before some families in D.C. started to run out of cash, once the coronavirus began to spread.

Dozens of low-income families served by Martha’s Table lost their jobs practically overnight. Kim R. Ford, president and CEO of the nonprofit education and food assistance provider, began hearing from D.C. parents within days of the first confirmed local COVID-19 case in March. Many had no savings and no Plan B. They needed cash right away.

So Martha’s Table began putting money in people’s hands, no strings attached.

“We were just hoping that this was going to help folks get through,” Ford says.

The initiative has done that and more. Over the next four months, the organization distributed $1.2 million to 137 families enrolled in its programs, and laid the foundation for what’s now a $3.5 million philanthropic fund called THRIVE East of the River. Recipients of THRIVE funds — which total $5,500 per household, in a lump sum or monthly installments — say the money has kept them housed, covered their bills and given them faith they’ll get through the pandemic with their lives intact. The fund is expected to benefit up to 500 households in D.C.’s Ward 8, where nearly a third of families live in poverty.

The program’s most unusual feature may be the freedom it gives recipients to use the funds however they wish. Unlike many government safety-net programs, THRIVE doesn’t require recipients to keep their income low or use the money in a certain way. Recipients are selected by the organizations that oversee the program — Martha’s Table, Bread for the City, 11th Street Bridge Park and the Far Southeast Family Strengthening Collaborative — and they’re trusted to spend the cash as they see fit.

That trust is crucial, Ford says.

“An awful stigma about cash transfers is that if you give people money, they’re going to spend it poorly, and that’s not true,” Ford says.

Most families who received relief funds from Martha’s Table have spent it on rent, utilities and food, according to an internal survey conducted by the organization. Many say the money has helped stabilize their lives after the economic shock of COVID-19.

Rae, a single mother who volunteers at Martha’s Table, is using her $5,500 relief payment to cover bills and get back on her feet after the pandemic forced her to temporarily stop working as a cosmetologist. (WAMU is withholding Rae’s last name to protect her privacy.) But the funds have also helped her recover from profound trauma. She and her toddler have been moving from place to place for the last few years, after she says her ex-partner attempted to kill them both during a psychotic episode.

“I’m scared to stay in houses with other people,” Rae says. “Are they going to protect me, or would they let this man come in and try to hurt me?”

Now she plans to move into a two-bedroom apartment near Martha’s Table’s headquarters in Ward 8, where her son is enrolled in early childhood classes. She says the cash assistance from THRIVE — combined with income from her revived hairstyling business — should be enough for her to make the transition this fall.

“My goal … is to provide a stable financial environment for my son so that I don’t find myself in situations where I’m living in my car, living from house to house, not telling my family what was going on because I was too embarrassed,” Rae says. “That’s not supposed to be my life.”

Britney Williams, a THRIVE recipient in Southwest D.C., had to give up her job at The Arc in Prince George’s County, which provides special education programs. She needed to oversee her school-aged children while they attend virtual classes at home. The $5,500 grant has covered her expenses while she’s unemployed, but she especially values the financial education classes that are offered as part of the program.

“They’re not like, ‘Hey, we just give you this gift and go spend your money and do whatever,'” Williams says. “They are working the steps with me. They’re showing me how to budget and how to spend. And that, to me, is more important than the money itself.”

THRIVE is intended to support people on an emergency basis, Ford says. But it may also provide a template for future programs aimed at low-income families facing everyday cash shortages. There is mounting evidence that unrestricted cash transfers, like a recent philanthropically funded basic income program in Stockton, California, can help break cycles of poverty. Providing funds to families who participate in apprenticeships or educational programs could be another iteration, Ford says.

“What we’re trying to do [now] is just buy time in a horrible situation,” Ford says. “[But] thinking about ‘earn-and-learn’ models so that people can actually achieve their dreams and get to a family-sustaining wage is where the next steps should be.”

Unconditional cash transfers aren’t a new idea in the U.S. Since 1982, a program in Alaska has given residents a cut of the state’s oil revenue, no questions asked. But the national conversation around cash transfers has changed dramatically in just the last two years, urged forward by decades of wage stagnation, deepening economic inequality and calls for a universal basic income from high-profile figures such as former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.

Yang’s “Freedom Dividend” proposal captured the imaginations of left-leaning economists and policy wonks who said it could reduce inequality and compensate Americans put out of work by tech-fueled automation. A recent Pew Research Center survey showed that 45% of Americans would support unconditional $1,000 monthly payments for all Americans, and nearly 380,000 people have signed an online petition calling for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to support a program like universal basic income during the pandemic.

At the same time, the concept of a government-funded UBI has plenty of critics. Conservatives warn such a program would drain public resources and discourage work — an argument that has defined Congressional Republican opposition to continuing federally funded unemployment benefits during the pandemic. Critics on the left say proposals like Yang’s — which would have required Americans to choose between cash payments and any other safety net benefits — could lead to the demise of social welfare programs like Social Security.

But when the pandemic hit, many middle-class Americans were forced to navigate government safety net programs for the first time, discovering for themselves how frustrating those programs can be.

Unemployment benefits were painfully slow to arrive after the crisis struck. Federal resources like TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) and SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps) have strict requirements and limitations, and even Americans who now qualify for them may feel ashamed to sign up. And while many organizations have stepped up to provide meals to people who have lost their incomes, food assistance only goes so far, says Tonia Wellons, president and CEO of the Greater Washington Community Foundation, a philanthropic organization.

“You can’t go to a food bank to get gas,” Wellons says.

That’s why cash has begun to gain acceptance as a logical and efficient form of assistance during the health emergency, says Mary Bogle, a principal research associate with the Urban Institute who’s tracking the THRIVE program.

“[Cash] really is the most portable solution in the middle of a constantly unfolding emergency situation where people can’t even get out of their house for face-to-face services,” Bogle says. “So rather than say, ‘Here’s your food, here’s your housing,’ etc., hand people some money and they can take care of their own needs.”

The perception that low-income people can’t be trusted with money has historically paralyzed the conversation around cash relief in the United States, Bogle says. The racist myth of the “welfare queen” still looms large in the public imagination.

But Wellons says she saw that perception shift as the virus began to upend Washingtonians’ lives. Funders quickly rallied around the THRIVE initiative, committing millions of dollars in just a few months’ time. Donations continue to stream in today.

“I think it’s just a recognition that with so much unemployment, people need food assistance, they need rent assistance, but they also need just the basic capital to handle their day-to-day business,” Wellons says. “The widespread impact has forced people to say, ‘Yep, people need money.’ They need money in their own hands so they can have agency over how they respond to this pandemic.”

It should not come as a surprise that families who received the funds have used them to cover necessities, Wellons adds. “Poor people are typically not low on character, they’re low on cash.”

But the future of cash transfers can’t remain solely in the hands of the philanthropic community, says Mary Bogle with the Urban Institute. In order for a program like this to function long-term, it requires consistent funding and administration, which is best provided by the public sector.

And while some Americans have flocked to the idea of a universal basic income — in which everyone, regardless of wealth, receives the same monthly supplement from the U.S. government — she says a truly effective cash transfer program should practice what’s called “targeted universalism,” in which those with the greatest need receive the most help.

“This is a way to stabilize hardworking, good people who are more under the gun than others. And there’s definitely racial equity built in,” Bogle says. “That’s why I think the funders have come out so hard for this. They’re saying, ‘Yes, these folks are in more trouble than others. We want to help.'”