The spotlight is shining on Hamilton's role in a three-year experiment where about 1,000 people in the city living in poverty will receive a no-strings attached base income.

Media reports on the basic income pilot project in Ontario have recently been published in the U.K. and U.S., and a correspondent from PBS NewsHour was in town this week to interview participants.

Attention may increase with the Basic Income Congress coming to the city in May.

"Hamilton is like the epicentre of this important and growing social policy initiative," said Tom Cooper, chair of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction.

The project that started late last summer will see 4,000 Ontarians receive a guaranteed income of about $17,000 — depending on their individual circumstances — in place of conventional social assistance benefits.

The other community test sites are Brantford, Lindsay and Thunder Bay.

Cooper suggests the media glare, while generally positive, also presents a challenge of sorts for participants, which is why he recently organized a media "boot camp" session at Mohawk College.

Ten participants learned the ropes for dealing with reporters, including a mock news conference with Mohawk journalism students.

Cooper is concerned some reporters may take advantage of participants in the program to cast them and the initiative in a mocking light.

A recent headline in the tabloid N.Y. Post about the project describes it as "handing out free money."

Cooper said he wants participants to "guard against being manipulated to the point that their stories are taken away from them."

Hamilton's Alana Baltzer said the media training session was helpful and added that her experience three months into the basic income project has already changed her life.

"It's a great thing. It helps you feel like an actual citizen. There is more dignity attached to it than with (receiving) social assistance."

For one thing, Baltzer, who started the program in November, said she was finally able to afford a solid new winter coat, and just in time for the bitter winter cold snap.

Baltzer, who is 28 and has mental health and arthritis challenges, said she is using her improved financial resources to eat healthier and lose weight, and to finance an education at Mohawk in social service work to start a career and get off social assistance entirely.

"I don't want to spend the rest of my life on social assistance. This is an opportunity to get out of poverty. I'm determined to not let it go to waste."

Researchers at McMaster University and St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto will monitor and assess how the participants who receive the income fare.

Some form of basic income research has been conducted in several countries, but Ontario's project is the most "robust" attempt to date, Cooper said.

He believes the initiative will ultimately prove to be among the most influential social policies of the 21st century, as automation displaces traditional jobs and more people need income support.

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"I think the eyes of the world are on our community and this pilot project."

A lot of those eyes have perhaps seen a photo that ran with a widely published Associated Press story about the project. In the photo, Tim Button, one of Hamilton's basic income participants, stands at a bus stop wearing a Ticats hat and his jacket open to reveal words on his T-shirt that read: "Walk in someone else's shoes."

jwells@thespec.com

905-526-3515 | @jonjwells