At a summit aimed at finding solutions to end childhood poverty in San Mateo County, organizers and county officials announced plans for a new county universal basic income program for kids 0-3 whose families meet income requirements.
The program is a joint effort between former U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier and San Mateo Supervisors Noelia Corzo and Ray Mueller that will see the supervisors provide some of their Measure K discretionary funding and the rest from the Jackie Speier Foundation for Women and Children, an organization working to address poverty, lack of housing and child care, and domestic violence. The announcement was made at the San Mateo County Rising — Ending Child Poverty summit at the South San Francisco Conference Center on Aug. 18, which explored solutions to address poverty in one of the richest counties in the country.
The program will provide $300 a month to 200 families in San Mateo County who qualify through Medicaid. The families must have children aged 0-3. The foundation is putting up $350,000, while the county will provide the other $350,000. Speier noted that studies have shown that families receiving financial assistance are more likely to spend it on enrichment to help their kids and are better off overall.
“It’s the very least we can do to guarantee these kids can achieve things in school and go to college,” Speier said of poverty, something she described as a cancer.
According to information presented at the summit, 27,000 children live in poverty in the county while also being home to 22 billionaires and 5,000 people making over $4 million a year, something Speier is committed to ending.
Corzo grew up low-income and experienced many of the issues discussed at the summit, along with being a former school board member who saw kids in education struggle because of a lack of support. Her experiences led to her interest in helping women and children with the income program, along with potentially creating other programs in the coming months.
“For me, many of those stories are not new,” Corzo said. “I see them in the community and feel close to them still, and that has driven me to be part of innovative projects and do things differently.”
Speier approached Mueller several months ago to garner support at the county level, and he believes the funding and the corresponding study that will follow how the program has helped the families will show public policy can have a positive effect on public health.
“It’s wonderful to see her foundation bringing together academia, philanthropy and the county to build strong foundational public policy,” he said.
He acknowledged there would need to be a lot more work and study to address all aspects of poverty but believes there are opportunities for more collaboration with other higher education and nonprofit institutions in the future following the summit.
U.S. Rep. Kevin Mullin, CA-15, also announced he is introducing a bill to update the federal poverty line that is based on food costs and was last updated in 1964. He wants to update it to account for the cost of living, housing and health care.
The summit featured keynote speaker Matthew Desmond, a professor of sociology from Princeton University and author who grew up in poverty in Arizona. He noted the three most important things people can do to reduce poverty is to join an antipoverty movement, vote with your wallets to make change, and advocate at city zoning meetings for affordable housing. He criticized local ordinances and policies that build walls in neighborhoods that result in less housing, noting people living in poverty are often exploited by increasing rent prices.
“We don’t need to outsmart the problem,” Desmond said at the summit. “We need to out-hate it.”