To study how guaranteed income paired with culturally relevant social service networks impact socioeconomic mobility for Black women and their families.

As a result, we aim to advance culturally relevant strategies that shift human services delivery models and demonstrate new ways to address poverty. Through this program, we highlight the racial and ethnic experience of poverty as a social construct, rather than a character deficit, and will work with the community in real-time to develop solutions that eliminate it. By providing a base of income and a supportive network of community-based resources, we will create an environment for individual self-determination and communal participation, and study those impacts on participant’s socioeconomic health.

To develop this project design, Café X: By Any Beans Necessary hosted several focus groups with Black women residing in affordable housing and assembled an advisory board wholly comprised of Black women. These conversations highlighted the need for a more nuanced view of social service delivery and safety net programs available to the Black community in San Diego County. During these conversations we discovered evidence that cash alone may not provide long-term solutions to pervasive health problems in the Black community. We developed a hypothesis that social supports that nurture self-determination and self-actualization may play a role in ameliorating racially disparate health outcomes. In other words, cash without long-term, culturally specific, supportive resources may not king.

We will provide income of $1,000, over three years, to 25 – 50 Black women earning 30%-50% of AMI in San Diego County paired with a cultivated network of services that is informed by impacted individuals’ lived experience and revised iteratively through consultation with those closest to the problem. We will deploy a participatory action research model to assess and develop a continuum of resources to support the on-going needs of the individual and the family. Participants will receive core services and coaching focused on Black culture and self-actualization, economic mobility, mental health, civic engagement and belonging. As a result, we will build a culturally competent ecosystem within the community that builds power and equips Black families to challenge institutional norms.A Blueprint for Reciprocity will be developed between Café X: By Any Beans Necessary, San Diego for Every Child and Jewish Family Service to document and inform strategy for engaging ethnically diverse communities contending with historical trauma while partnering to catalyze systems change.

Total cost of this pilot for three years is $2,809,800 for targeted work and could increase to $3,844,800 if an additional 25 women are added to the pilot in the second year (50 women total). This includes capacity support to fund staff positions (3), guaranteed income, and evaluation as major expenses; consulting, sub-grants and workshops hosted by businesses and organizations for the women are additional. An allocation of $230,000 - $250,000 would help kickstart the capacity-building work by hiring staff to solidify infrastructure. We would like the income payments to begin in Spring 2022, and end in Spring 2025. Jewish Family Service will serve as the program’s fiscal agent and provide fundraising support.