Eudora Tucker long dreamed of owning her own fashion business, but ordinary expenses always stood in the way.

Now she’s attending to both, paying bills and designing her line of sustainable clothing, thanks to a cash-assistance program that puts an extra $200 in her pocket each month.

“Living in New York City, it's always like, do I pay this bill? Or do I really invest in buying the materials I need for this one piece that I can sell?” said Tucker, who lives in Downtown Brooklyn with her son.

The program is administered by The Child Center of NY, a Queens-based nonprofit, and enrolls low-income New Yorkers who agree to meet with a cohort of other participants on a monthly basis. It launched last spring, fueled by a $1.5 million grant from the Phyllis Backer Foundation, in addition to a $450,000 grant from the William J. and Dorothy K. O’Neill Foundation.

It’s among an ever-expanding number of cash-assistance and guaranteed-income programs being piloted nationwide, backed by both private and public resources, including tax credits. Some 38,000 people are enrolled in 100 pilot programs, according to a count by the Economic Security Project. Research is still out on whether the initiatives achieve their overarching goals of stemming poverty over the long term, as well as which formula for distributing cash works best.

Rebecca Redelmeier has the story.