Growing Resilience (GRIT) Cash Assistance Project
In a time marked by economic uncertainty and shifting labor markets, the need for innovative solutions to ensure household stability has never been more necessary. Direct cash assistance has emerged as a compelling strategy to address income volatility and household instability.
Many Puget Sound area residents spend more than half of their income to keep a roof over their heads. Being housing cost-burdened significantly increases the risk of homelessness for families. When unexpected expenses arise, such as a medical emergency or job loss, households are at risk of eviction or displacement.
Direct cash transfer programs, like GRIT, are designed to help struggling families meet their basic needs. GRIT offers direct cash payments to eligible households, ensuring that parents can focus on what truly matters: raising their children and building a brighter future for their family. Unrestricted cash assistance is an effective strategy to promote economic resilience, reduce poverty, and foster greater security for families and vulnerable individuals.
How Does It Work
Once enrolled in GRIT, participants receive:
- Monthly Cash Payments: 12 monthly payments designed to provide stability and relieve some financial stress, providing an opportunity to focus on long-term goals like career advancement, educational opportunities, and creating a better future for your children
- Benefits Counseling:
- Supports and Resources:
- Opportunities to Earn Stipends for Participating in Evaluation/Learning Activities:
Why It Matters
As a single parent, juggling the responsibilities of work, childcare, and running a household can feel overwhelming. Many ALICE households have a parent working two or even three jobs just to make ends meet. The financial strain is real. Despite being employed, many of these families cannot afford basic necessities, let alone plan for the future. GRIT is here to p/grit-registrationrovide immediate relief along with supports and resources, ensuring families can thrive.
Why It Matters
As a single parent, juggling the responsibilities of work, childcare, and running a household can feel overwhelming. Many ALICE households have a parent working two or even three jobs just to make ends meet. The financial strain is real. Despite being employed, many of these families cannot afford basic necessities, let alone plan for the future. GRIT is here to provide immediate relief along with support and resources, ensuring families can thrive.
How to Apply
Currently, the Growing Resilience program is not accepting applications, as GRIT 2.0 closed out in March 2025. If you would like to be notified if additional funding becomes available for GRIT 3.0, CLICK HERE.
Quick Links:
Recipient Stories
Impact and Data
FAQs
“I have the chance to make my own decisions... it is so much different than how it used to feel,” Says a GRIT recipient. They add that this “blessing” has kept them from needing a second job, has allowed them to leave an unsafe workspace, supported them in finding safe housing, keeps their car bills paid, and might even allow for a day at a theme park for them and their daughter.
Click the picture to read Comments and Bio's for some of the recipients
“GRIT has helped me in ways I didn’t expect, and those payments helped me be able to afford the expensive tutoring that my 11 year old really needed. It’s changed my house for the better. And I’ve felt so much less month-to-month stress since this program started. It feels like I have some room to breathe. “ - GRIT recipient
Recipient Demographics and Eligibility
The composition of participants matches, to the extent possible given randomization limitations, the configuration of race and gender in Pierce County ALICE families.
The dollars provided an outsized benefit to women, Black, Indigenous, Latino, and multiracial communities given they are overly represented in lower-income brackets (which is in itself a symptom of our racist and sexist economic system).
Demographics
Race (in %)
Native American/
Pacific Islander - 4%
Black African American - 26%
American Indian/
Alaska Native - 2%
Asian - 4%
White - 23%
Hispanic/Latino - 4%
Two or more races - 37%
Gender (in%)
Female - 82%
Male - 16%
Non-binary/
Non-conforming - 1%
The 110 families that received the guaranteed income were randomly selected from a pool of qualified applicants.
Qualified individuals were:
·City of Tacoma Residents currently residing in Eastside (98404), Hilltop (98405), South Tacoma (98409) or the South End (98408)
·Single income households with children living in the home up to age 17, children with disabilities up to age 21.
·Meet the ALICE definition: Asset Limited, Income Constrained while Employed. ALICE households income is between 100% and 200% of the Federal Poverty Level.
“First, just being accepted into this program was awesome. To have that tiny bump to help combat debt/bills is terrific and terrifying. Terrific because I know that utility bill will be paid and my family will have power and water. I can breathe easier for a moment instead of worrying myself to death about money, working extra hours, and hours of lost sleep due to the mental/physical affects of not knowing how I will provide for my family.
Initial Findings
"It was a huge leap to get past the guilt and shame of 'who am I to accept this?'... There is that assumption that you always have to be doing something to be deserving of receiving, and it's just strange because we are always doing something. We are." - GRIT recipient
GRIT is a randomized control trial (RCT) being run by the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Guaranteed Income Research. In the RCT there are 110 Tacoma families that receive $500 each month and participate in optional, compensated surveys and qualitative interviews every 6 months. As a comparison group to the 110, there are 132 Tacoma families who are demographically similar to the 110, however, do not receive the $500 each month but are invited to participate in the surveys and interviews. We expect to have survey data in July 2024.
To review GRIT data and data from our partner cities please explore https://guaranteedincome.us/tacoma
Spending Behavior
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GRIT believes there is an opportunity to not only provide cash as a tool of poverty alleviation, but also to learn through pilots and demonstrations how to administer support programs in a way that empowers the individual, affirms trust and respect, and honors the value of people's time and dignity. Some of our administrative lessons learned include:
Benefits protection - Ensuring that additional income does not harm families. Guaranteed income is best positioned in addition to current benefits systems
Self-attestation - Allowing families the ability to self-attest to their relationship to eligibility criteria lightened administrative burden, saved time for busy recipients, and created a foundation of trust
Providing disbursement options for banked, unbanked, and underbanked participants
Working with the impacted community to ensure awareness and supportive programming
Kind and thoughtful communication with participants goes a long way
The GRIT Application is Closed!
Supporting low-income, single-head-of-household families with no-strings-attached cash gifts.
Growing Resilience in Tacoma (GRIT) 2.0 is a 12-month guaranteed cash gift project. GRIT 2.0 is a partnership with the Washington State Economic Services Administration, the City of Tacoma, Pierce County Government, and United Way of Pierce County designed to boost the financial security of low-income, single heads of households with children.
We've reviewed qualifications, randomly chosen participants and are completing orientation. If you have questions about this process, please refer to the FAQs.
Why provide a guaranteed cash gift?
• Unconditional cash gift programs are an effective tool that empowers families by providing them with the resources they need to support their families.
• For many households, a small monthly infusion of financial support can make the difference between stability and vulnerability.
• Despite the overall prosperity of the Puget Sound area, in Pierce County more than one in four households struggles to meet their basic needs.
• Economic inequity negatively impacts families and undermines our county’s overall well-being and economic health.
• The COVID pandemic and economic inflation have magnified these inequities.
From April 2024 to June 2025, GRIT 2.0 will gift 175 ALICE (asset-limited, income-constrained, employed) families $500 a month for 12 months. These dollars are unconditional and unrestricted. This project is designed to demonstrate that this type of cash investment can reduce feelings of overwhelm and toxic stress, improve economic stability, increase housing security, and improve health and well-being while reducing poverty in our community.
This project will serve residents who live within zip codes with the highest numbers of ALICE households. Project participants will be chosen through a randomized selection process.
Program Goals:
The program aims to alleviate poverty by improving economic stability, housing security, and mental health through:
Investing in ALICE: Supporting a population already identified as struggling - Asset Limited, Income Constrained and Employed - which represents the financial disparities of BIPOC families and has been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cultivating Resilience: Empower families to make financial decisions and address crises on their own terms.
Additionally, the demonstration aims to inform State and Federal policies that promote economic opportunity and enhance, improve and increase equity in the social safety net by:
Changing the Narrative: Through storytelling and data, build a case for supporting more equity in housing, childcare, physical wellbeing, and financial wellness and uplift the truth that poverty is a systems failure - not a personal failure.
Building Support: Leverage learnings and experiences to impact systems changes that support unconditional cash programs and other strength-based policies that enhance, improve and increase equity in the social safety net.
Taxability regarding gift cash assistance payments
The GRIT program disbursement is a gift from United Way of Pierce County to you. There are no work requirements that you need to complete to receive this funding. You are not required to participate in the research study to receive this funding. It is important to understand that though United Way of Pierce County has determined this is a gift, there is a possibility that the IRS might still reach out to you. If the IRS reaches out to you, please contact a tax expert immediately.