Las Animas County households included in $13,000 cash study
Selected Huerfano and Las Animas households will receive $13,000 in a basic-income test. Organizers will track rent, debt, childcare and other urgent costs.
The Colorado Community Action Association’s Balance of State Basic Income Research Project is taking applications from Huerfano, Las Animas and Moffat County residents, and selected households will receive a $13,000 lump sum. In Las Animas County, the project puts Trinidad, nearby rural communities and the rest of Region 14 into a policy experiment meant to test whether direct cash can ease day-to-day financial strain.
The money is being offered as research, not charity. Organizers want to see how households use the one-time payment for urgent needs such as rent, transportation, childcare, debt reduction and other expenses that can quickly destabilize a family budget in a county where services are spread out and a missed repair or medical bill can snowball fast. The project’s focus on “financial breathing room” makes the outcome questions practical: does a large cash infusion help families get ahead, or does the effect fade without changing longer-term stability?
Household selection runs through the application process, with residents from the three-county program area able to apply and only some households chosen for the study. The Chronicle-News described the effort as a $13,000 universal basic income research project, and Colorado Public Radio’s headline framed it as a project measuring basic income effects. Those labels reflect the same basic structure: a limited pool of households, a fixed one-time payment, and a built-in effort to measure what happens next.
The county context helps explain why the study is drawing attention. The Colorado Department of Education says Region 14, which includes Huerfano and Las Animas counties, covers 6.1% of Colorado’s land area but has only 23,186 residents. USAFacts says median household income in Las Animas County was $52,100 in 2020-2024, 45.5% lower than Colorado overall. If the findings are shared publicly, they could shape future county or regional anti-poverty decisions by giving local leaders something more concrete than theory to weigh when debating direct-cash programs.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
