I am pleased to share new updates from the Price Center for Social Innovation. Earlier this month, we released a new report examining the complex social safety net for low-income working families, in partnership with Imagine LA. I encourage you to explore the report below and listen to the USC Bedrosian Center's recent podcast on the topic.

As always, thank you for your interest and support of the Price Center. I can be reached directly at [email protected] if you would like to connect.

The Price Center for Social Innovation partnered with Imagine LA to understand the total resources families have available and identify the threshold points where the safety net may actually become a barrier towards economic independence — a benefits cliff, where an increase in earnings leaves a family worse off, or a resource plateau, where such an increase leaves a family no better off in terms of the total resources available to them (income and benefits).

The USC Schwarzenegger Institute and the Price Center for Social Innovation hosted a virtual event that examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on homelessness and the housing crisis. Gary Painter, Director of the USC Sol Price Center for Social Innovation and the Homelessness Policy Research Institute provided a research overview of homelessness and the housing crisis. Saba Mwine, Managing Director of the Homelessness Policy Research Institute, moderated a panel that examined lessons learned from the pandemic and ways to transform some of the short-term pandemic innovations into long-term solutions. Panelists included CA Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, Danielle Latteri, Senior Director of Supportive Services at Jamboree Housing Corporation, and John Vu, Vice President of Strategy for Community Health at Kaiser Permanente.

Social Innovation Speaker Series Featuring Papia Debroy and Kate Naranjo from Opportunity@Work

On October 21, 2021, the Price Center's Social Innovation Speaker Series featured Papia Debroy, Senior Vice President of Insights at Opportunity@Work, and Kate Naranjo, Director of Opportunity@Work's STARs Policy Project. The speakers discussed why the American Dream is not being realized by millions of families, particularly families with people of color.

The USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health, in partnership with the USC Dornsife Equity Research Institute, the Price Center for Social Innovation, the USC-Keck Human Rights Clinic, the USC Keck Division of Global Emergency Medicine, and the 2021 USC SDG Leadership Academy, hosted a virtual panel to highlight the range of work happening across USC to address COVID-related inequalities in Los Angeles. The panel, which took place Sept. 16, included faculty and students from across the university who shared current work and joined in a discussion with the audience on key issues to moving toward a just recovery in LA. The presentations highlighted differences in how each group was tangibly trying to understand and make a difference here in LA, employing different methodological approaches and working with different partners, all to best address the devastating impacts of COVID on the most vulnerable in our communities. The panel was lively and informative and ended with a call to action for all participants to engage in this work to help move our city forward.

The Neighborhood Data for Social Change recently launched the USC Area Housing Dashboard in partnership with the UNIDAD Coalition ––a group of community-based organizations in South Central Los Angeles. The Dashboard seeks to highlight housing data trends of the USC community including resident characteristics, the built environment, and housing affordability and stability. This data story takes a deeper dive into some of the trends shown on the dashboard by examining single-family mortgage applications in the USC area in the last decade following the Great Recession.

Dr. Christine Beckman, Price Family Chair in Social Innovation and Associate Director of the Price Center, edited Carnegie goes to California: Advancing and Celebrating the Work of James G. March; Vol: 76

The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) hosted a webinar and discussion of the the Journal on Migration and Human Security report entitled, “Tax Equality for Immigrants: The Indispensable Ingredient for Remedying Child Poverty in the United States.” The report’s authors, Associate Director Roberto Suro and Hannah Findling, shared key findings and policy recommendations from the report.

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