It was like money falling from the sky.
Except the city of Los Angeles would be sending it to her in a debit card every month. A thousand dollars. To spend however Sara Calderon and her family wanted.
For the first time in two years, the 25-year-old mother from South L.A. felt the clouds of hardship start to part. It had been a dark two years. Calderon and her partner had both lost their jobs in early 2020, at the start of the pandemic, kickstarting a cycle of debt as they fell increasingly behind on rent and utility payments and were forced to put basic necessities on credit cards.
And there were health challenges. Calderon, who gave birth to her first child during the stressful height of pandemic lockdown, developed preeclampsia and postpartum depression, complicating her entry into motherhood. When she received the call about being accepted into the guaranteed income program through the Los Angeles’ Community Investment for Families Department, she was pregnant with her second child. She had been worrying constantly about her family’s financial situation as she juggled parenting, a new job as a teacher’s assistant and completing an associate degree.
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