Despite working two jobs, Lorrine Paradela, 46, of Stockton, California, endured unrelenting stress over whether she could pay her bills every month.

“Sometimes you get child support, sometimes you don’t,” says Paradela, who lives with her 17-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter and doesn’t qualify for public assistance. “My mind kept going all the time. It wouldn’t stop. I didn’t sleep right.”

In early 2019, she began receiving $500 a month as part of a Stockton pilot program that gave a similar amount to 125 residents for two years. She used the money to pay bills, buy her kids gifts, fix her 2003 Chevy Trailblazer and ultimately buy a 2015 Honda Accord that allowed her to keep working.

“I was able to breathe better,” she says. “I was able to sleep.”