Cincinnati, OH – September 29, 2025 – Monday, Mayor Aftab Pureval, City leaders, and partners announced updated results for Cincinnati’s Medical Debt Relief program, a Financial Freedom Blueprint initiative to erase medical debt for local residents. From the City’s $1.45 million investment, a total of over $219 million in debt has been relieved for over 107,000 individual Cincinnati residents. Partners in this program included Undue Medical Debt, a national nonprofit administering the program, and UC Health.

“This is not just a significant step toward dismantling the barriers that have contributed to the wealth gap in Cincinnati. It is a collaboration that has helped change the lives of local families on a deeply personal, human level,” said Mayor Aftab Pureval.

To qualify for debt relief, individuals must live in Cincinnati and have an income of 400% of the federal poverty level or less (just over $100,000 for a family of three) or have medical debt that equals 5% or more of their annual income. All qualifying residents whose debt has been abolished received an Undue-branded letter in the mail over the summer.

Medical debt relief is source-based, meaning the nonprofit can only erase qualifying medical debts it’s able to acquire from partners like hospitals. For this reason, medical debt relief cannot be requested. Undue Medical Debt acquires the most burdensome medical debts in bulk for a fraction of their face value, meaning one donated dollar can erase $100 of medical debt on average.

The Medical Debt Relief program was a key initiative built from the City’s Financial Freedom Blueprint, a policy roadmap aimed at addressing the city’s racial wealth gap and ensuring all residents have the opportunity to achieve financial empowerment through asset ownership. The blueprint was the product of a yearlong process of community engagement, national research, and data-collection by a cross-departmental team led by the Office of Performance and Data Analytics.

Cincinnati was selected by the national nonprofit Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund’s (CFE Fund) CityStart initiative to create a blueprint to help address the financial empowerment needs of residents and the opportunities to meet those needs, prioritizing the financial stability needs of Black residents. As part of the CFE Fund’s CityStart initiative, which is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative, the City received a $75,000 planning grant, as well as extensive CFE Fund technical assistance.

As part of this blueprint, the City conducted a statistically significant survey of over 1,000 residents, including 500 African American residents, to uncover findings around barriers to banking access, job mobility, student loans, homeownership, and business ownership. The City also held focus groups to better understand what interventions residents would like to see, as well as individual interviews with community activists, scholars, and organizations. The results are available in detail through the survey report (available via email upon request).

In the Fiscal Year 2024 Budget, the City allocated $2.125MM to fund new policy recommendations in the blueprint, including $1.45MM towards the Medical Debt Relief program.

“I’m thrilled to see the remarkable impact of Cincinnati’s Medical Debt Relief program, which has now helped over 107,000 residents by erasing more than $219 million in medical debt,” said Undue Medical Debt CEO and president Allison Sesso. “This transformative partnership with Mayor Pureval, the City of Cincinnati, and UC Health demonstrates what’s possible when local leaders prioritize removing the financial and emotional burden of medical debt from families who are least able to pay these debts of necessity. I hope this relief encourages recipients to re-engage with the healthcare system and serves as a model for other cities looking to tackle this pressing crisis.”

Also included in the blueprint’s policy recommendations are recent City programs such as the following (more information available upon request):

• A Children’s Savings Account, launched this year to support local families in financially planning for secondary education.
• The City’s Access to Counsel Program, in partnership with United Way Greater Cincinnati, the Legal Aid Society of Cincinnati, and the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Help Center — which to-date has offered rental assistance and legal representation to hundreds of families.