USC Senior Olivia Olson, speaks with USC Price Center for Social Innovation & Imagine LA to understand a partnership study that examined the complex social safety network for low-income working families to identify stagnation points. Learn about the policy recommendations, a calculator to examine available or overlapping benefits, & demystify the complex social safety net for low-income working families. https://socialinnovation.usc.edu/safety-net/

Even before the COVID pandemic brought the notion of precarity to the mainstream, students throughout the U.S. often faced different types of insecurity. In 2019, after hearing  story after story from students, Cara Esposito & the Leonetti/O'Connell Family Foundation created an emergency aid program; co-designed with researchers at the USC Price Center for Social Innovation & students experiencing precariousness. Emergency Aid programs work. So ... what now?

Conversations about governmental and social services can get pretty wonky ... and yet, they are often vital for making real change, particularly at the local level. Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) allow governments to take risk without footing the bill unless & until there are results. Gary Painter from the Price Center for Social Innovation joins research partners Chris Fox and Susan Baines from Manchester Metropolitan University to share findings from recent evaluations of SIBs in the wild.

The folks from the USC Safe Communities Institute stopped by to tell us all about the new LEWIS Registry. The LEWIS Registry is a crowdsourced public database for police officers who have been fired or resigned during an investigation of their behavior. In addition to the front, public-facing, end there is a backend for use by Law Enforcement.

Olivia Olson speaks with Prof Jody Armour about the power of "word work." In Armour's latest book N*gga Theory, the focuses is on the n-word. Delving deeply into the social meaning, history, & morality behind the use of words. When the power of the state used language to sow inequality, how must we unlearn the language, how do we redefine the words we use to re-root community, to reclaim morality, to grow justice?

Falling is the number one cause of injury and the seventh leading cause of death in adults ages 65 and older. In “Breaking Down Silos to Improve the Health of Older Adults,” Richard Green, Patricia Harris, and Anthony Orlando make the case for Medicare coverage of home safety renovations to minimize injuries (and death) due to falls. Olivia Olson speaks with Richard Green, Patricia F. Harris, and Anthony W. Orlando about their recent paper and the changes they hope to see in Medicare coverage.

Los Angeles County has a housing problem. So how have recent ballot initiatives worked toward increasing density and affordability for county residents? USC Professors Jorge De la Roca, Marlon Boarnet, and Richard Green are here to discuss their new analysis of inclusionary zoning and Transit Oriented Communities planning affects on the county and city of Los Angeles. How are we doing? Are we seeing signs of hope?

Victoria Ciudad-Real, John Roberson III, Gary Painter, and Jeffery Wallace join us for a conversation about Fair Chance Hiring. We'll get to the root of their collaborative project, "Accelerating Fair Chance Hiring Among Los Angeles Employers." We unearth how employers can benefit from this project, how Fair Chance Hiring benefits our communities, and why this practice will be vital for a sustainable future.

Daniel Flaming & Anthony Orlando stopped into a Zoom room with our ED  a few weeks ago to share findings from a new report. Their focus is on homelessness during and after the COVID pandemic.

Too many of our neighbors faced rental precarity before the pandemic. Folks from the Price Center for Social Innovations speak with us about their new report covering findings from a door-to-door survey done in 2019 to unearth the realities of families living with rent burden. What do real people have to give up when their rent is 30%, 40%, 50%, or more of their take home pay?