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Long Beach Will Provide Living Stipends For Artists
A beach path in Long Beach. (Lita Martinez/LAist)
The city of Long Beach will offer $500 monthly stipends to 150 artists who are out of work because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The application-based program is intended to help recipients cover basic necessities, for a period of six months.
Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said creative workers are struggling to stay in the city .
“We don’t want to lose people forever,” he said. “This something that really I hope many more cities take on.”
Long Beach joins San Francisco, which is launching a $1,000 monthly stipend for artists.
Garcia said the Long Beach experiment is a precursor to a citywide universal income program.
“I think guaranteed income programs are the future,” he said, “so programs like this should be experimented [with] … in as many places as possible.”.
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Long Beach previously provided federal stimulus funds to some renters. This program also taps federal funding.
City officials hope to begin sending payments to qualifying artists in January.
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