She received a $12,000 basic income. Three years later, she's a mom of six and moving to a bigger apartment.

• Taniquewa Brewster received $1,000 a month for one year from an Austin basic income program.
• She landed job certifications and stable housing, but is worried about emergency expenses.
• US cities have run hundreds of pilots offering no-strings-attached cash to low-income families.

Critics of basic income also say cash payments discourage participants from working to earn a paycheck, and that the programs require too much capital to operate alongside other safety net programs, like SNAP and Medicaid.

But, for Brewster, even a year of no-strings-attached cash was life-changing.

“It felt like people were actually asking me what my needs were, and how they could help me meet those needs,” she said. “There’s something comforting about someone actually caring enough to ask.”