Episode 3: The Hidden Affordability Gap: Rethinking Poverty and Community Solutions in San Francisco Transcript

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“Half of San Franciscans’ income goes to housing—what are they sacrificing?"- Angela Woodall”

A transcript, lightly edited for clarity and length, follows.

About This Transcript: This text version of our radio show/podcast is created to make our content more accessible to all audiences. However, it may not be 100% accurate. Some things to keep in mind: The original audio is always the most reliable source. Some words or phrases may be transcribed incorrectly due to audio quality, accents, or overlapping speech. Speaker labels are our best attempt at identification. We welcome your feedback if you spot errors that affect meaning or understanding.

[00:00:00] George Koster: We are opening the archives from when I first launched the show as part of a class at City College of San Francisco's KCSF. Across a decade on air, chronic crises we identified years ago only got worse in the pandemic, and continue to plague our communities today as they struggle to address these familiar crises.

Here's co-host and associate producer Eric Estrada with today's guest.

[00:00:30] Eric Estrada: Our guests today are Angela Woodall of the San Francisco Public Press, who highlights the city's affordability crisis, where housing costs consume half of most households' incomes, forcing families to cut back on food and rely on free clinics for medical care.

Her report suggests that current efforts fall short with outdated financial metrics and lack of political action contributing to the challenge. Caroline Danielson of the Public Policy Institute of California notes that federal poverty statistics understate the region's economic challenges. Public Policy Institute of California and Stanford developed the California Poverty Measure, which adjusts for local costs and safety net benefits, revealing a poverty rate of 21% statewide and 23% in San Francisco, nearly double the federal estimate.

While programs like Earned Income Tax Credit and CalFresh provide critical support, many families still struggle to meet their basic needs. And Stephanie Zamudio of the Family Independence Initiative, or FII, emphasizes the ingenuity of families in overcoming financial hurdles, often through community-driven solutions like trading childcare or participating in informal lending circles.

FII supports these efforts by formalizing lending circles and reporting payments to credit bureaus, helping families build credit and access traditional financial services over time.

[00:01:56] George Koster: I want to turn to Angela Woodhull, who's a journalist and the lead writer and researcher for San Francisco Public Press's special report on the rising cost of living.

Just provide us a background on why the team at San Francisco Public Press put together the special report, which is very detailed, and what was the driving forces behind that.

[00:02:15] Angela Woodall: Great. Well, thank you so much, George. And it's nice to be here. So at the San Francisco Public Press, we decided to take on the issue of cost of living, and of course, we had to acknowledge that housing played a very big part in the rising cost of living.

But we didn't wanna start there. We wanted to take a step beyond that to what was less obvious. So we looked at the data and we looked at the documents, and we tried to really sort of parse apart what it was like to live in San Francisco, not when you were moving to San Francisco, but when you were still trying to stay here, and especially if you were a family.

And so, like I said, we knew that housing was gonna be a big part of that. What we found was that it was half of what San Francisco households were spending. Well, if this is taking up half of their income, what are they giving up? What are they compromising on, and how is that affecting their day-to-day life?

So we looked at that and we saw that there were a number of issues. One was childcare, the other was transportation, um, healthcare and food actually. So one of the things that came out of this that was really interesting, and I wanna acknowledge the team of reporters who worked on these individual cost of living elements, these childcare issues, transportation issues.

People were giving up things like protein. They were substituting meat with Beans, for example, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but over time you start to see that it's not just about, "Oh, I have to give up meat and I have to eat beans." This is a long-term issue. It's affecting other choices, it's affecting their health, it's affecting nutrition.

And so if they were giving up one thing, what else were they giving up? So it's not just I'm giving up sweets or I'm not buying high-end cookies. It was taking a toll on deep parts of their life. The other thing, too, healthcare, even though San Francisco has really forward-thinking plans through the public health department, people weren't able to afford the coverage, healthcare coverage through Covered California.

So they were going to free clinics and they were accessing care there, and San Francisco is able to provide for them, but the issue was they're not actually able to pay the premiums on their healthcare plan, so they're accessing free healthcare. What can you do about that? Just things like that. So we started looking at that and also was saying, like sort of why is this happening?

Why in San Francisco, in one of the wealthiest cities in the country, one of the most expensive, but also one of the wealthiest, why was this happening? Why were people falling through the cracks? And what we found is that it was actually s- two issues really. One is accountability, and the other is how we were measuring income or measuring expenses.

So what fit in some parts of the country didn't fit in San Francisco because we were so far out of whack with indices that government uses to measure what people need.

[00:05:06] George Koster: Thank you. And that leads me to our next guest, and it's Caroline Danielson. She's a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, and the institute has done some great work in actually gathering the data.

And so I wanna turn to Caroline and ask her to share with the audience the report itself on the index, and then what you found with realistic numbers in San Francisco and in the Bay Area compared to what the state and/or even the federal numbers would use as an index.

[00:05:34] Caroline Danielson: Sure. Thank you. Yes, let me say that the Public Policy Institute of California has a mission of informing and improving public policymaking in California, and that this California Poverty Measure research, which is what we call our measure, CPM for short, is something we've done in collaboration with the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.

And our numbers, which I'm going to speak about estimates from the years twenty eleven to twenty thirteen averaged together, indicate that poverty in the state as a whole is quite a bit higher than the federal poverty line would indicate. So California's poverty rate is approximately sixteen percent in the state as a whole if you calculate it using an updated measure which takes into account the cost of living, but also the role of in-kind programs like food assistance programs that may help families make ends meet.

So if you add to the resources that families have, but also up the cost of living to be more realistic and make some other improvements to make the measure reflect more accurately a basic needs measure, you find that California's poverty rate is more like twenty-one percent, and this, according to Census Bureau research, makes California the poorest state in the country.

According to federal poverty statistics, California ranks somewhere in around number fifteen, but it shoots up to number one using these updated approaches to measuring poverty. San Francisco comes out at a even higher poverty rate than the state as a whole. It's about twenty-three percent or close to one in four people in San Francisco city and county.

And that's not double, but pretty close to double what the federal poverty rate would indicate. The federal poverty rate for San Francisco is about just under thirteen percent. So it's dramatically different when you take into account the cost of living. Even though we're adding resources from food assistance programs, from tax credits to up families' resources, when we weigh that against what it takes to make ends meet in San Francisco, it still comes out much higher.

[00:07:37] George Koster: Could you give us a, an example of when we say poverty, so what is the average median income for a family of four, for example, on a federal poverty level? Then I think the state of California has another floor, if you will, so far as an average median income, and then what an average median income is in San Francisco.

Then I think the other interesting part of that is what would you need to actually make to get above the poverty level? And then of course, last but not least, what would you need to make where you're actually able to, to Angela's point, stay here?

[00:08:08] Caroline Danielson: So I can speak to the way that poverty is measured is that there's a threshold that's established, and that threshold takes into account some basic needs that folks have.

In the case of the California Poverty Measure and the Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure, which is their approach to updating poverty to reflect current cost of living and current safety net programs as well as family resources. Uh, when you establish a poverty threshold, you include food, clothing, shelter, utilities.

Those estimates are based on real people's reports of what they pay for those items, and then a percentile of that is established as the floor. So the California-wide average for that, 'cause it, it varies by area in which you live, but the California-wide average for that is a little under $30,000 a year for a family of four, whereas the federal poverty threshold for a family of four is about $23,500.

So it's about 30% higher, the adjusted poverty threshold. In San Francisco, it's even higher than that. It's over $36,000. So that doesn't sound... That sounds like a fairly modest amount of resources, but it, relatively speaking, it's quite a bit higher than the federal poverty line, which does not vary by where you live, and it's also still substantially higher than the statewide average.

So relatively speaking, San Francisco's an expensive place to live in California and in the nation.

[00:09:32] George Koster: Can we get in a little bit into numbers? 'Cause what I found really interesting in the report is with your new California measurement index, what you discovered or uncovered were there were literally millions more children in poverty in San Francisco versus what everyone thought based on the numbers that one would look through, to your point, the lens of a federal or state, and then the m- millions or hundreds of thousands of families that were literally in poverty.

I think the other thing I found really interesting was deep poverty versus poverty.

[00:10:01] Caroline Danielson: Yeah. So the bottom line is that we do find more Californians in poverty. It's not so much children in poverty. The poverty rate for children is slightly higher, but because the good news, o- one piece of good news, is that because social safety net programs are often targeted at children, so the...

And I should be specific about those so folks know what I'm talking about. So in official poverty measurement, so the old style statistics that have been around for more than 50 years, what's taken into account is cash resources before you pay taxes, and so that includes your earnings. It can include what's called welfare payments, which, uh, is CalWORKs, General Assistance, supplemental security income.

Social Security certainly is also included. It does not include some in-kind, what's known as in-kind benefits like school meal programs, the WIC program for pregnant women and infants and small children, the CalFresh program, which used to be called the Food Stamps program, or tax credits, like the earned income tax credit, which newly this year the state has a state EITC.

The federal EITC is a very big program in helping fa- families make ends meet. And most of those programs are in reality aimed mostly at children or entirely at children. And so children's poverty rate doesn't change that much. It's a little higher. It's the poverty rate for adults and more so even older adults that changes more dramatically.

Another piece of good news is that the deep poverty rate, so living below half of what it takes to make ends meet or half of the poverty threshold, is lower under our research than it is under the federal line, indicating that these safety net programs are helping to keep families out of really dire circumstances.

What they are not always doing is helping them to get to that basic level of meeting necessities.

[00:11:52] George Koster: Now I'm going to turn to our next guest, Stephanie Zamudio, who's the liaison at the Family Independence Initiative, and ask her to provide us a little background on the initiative, as well as some of their services and outreach and work with families here in the Bay Area.

[00:12:07] Stephanie Zamudio: FII came to be 15 years ago this year, we're really excited about that, when our founder, Mauricio, was approached by then Mayor of Oakland, Jerry Brown, and said, "Mauricio, you've been the director of Asian Neighborhood Design, and it's been this recognized program nationwide. Clinton administration reached out to you.

What's the solution? If funding was not a problem, what would be the solution?" And he pondered on that and was like, "Let me get back to you on that." So he thought about it, and he thought about it, and he went back and he said, "You know what? I don't know. But I know that what we are doing is not working. I know that because we have the children of my clients coming to see me, clearly the cycle is not being broken.

There's something that needs to get fixed, and I don't know what the solution is, but I know that my mom did, because she broke the cycle. She got us out of it. She got me where I am today. And so the families have the solutions. I don't have a solution for all the families. Families have solutions for themselves.

So let us partner with families and learn from them." And that's exactly how FII started. FII partners with families that are low to median income, right? These, what we now have the disappearing middle class working poor, low income, and we learn directly from them. What are your obstacles, your hurdles?

Where are you struggling? What are your goals, right? So that we don't hear from a professional who will give us statistics or a general overview of everyone, where we can learn directly from the source and hear straight from them. So that's what we do. We partner with these families who give us data on a monthly basis over the course of two years so that we can see change and learn about What works, what obstacles families frequent so that we can figure out patterns.

And in exchange for that data, right, we give them an incentive on a quarterly basis, and they also have access to our resource hub, which has quite a few resources, scholarships, zero interest loans, credit-building resources, family scholarships, IDAs, where we match savings funds up to an X amount of money.

And the families in turn help us, right? 'Cause we don't help families at all. Without families, FI wouldn't exist. We're learning from the families, and they're teaching us, and when they use a resource, they tell us, "We really liked this, but it would've been better had it operated like this," or, "We didn't like this."

And we go modifying our resources based off of what we learn from families. People say, "Well, how do you help families?" We don't help families. Families are helping us. Our mission is to change the stereotypes that loom over low-income families. Our mission is to hopefully model for social programs the way we operate.

We believe that families who are taking that initiative to take control of their lives and better their situations and progress should have continued access to resources instead of removing access to resources and subsidies and help that they receive, right? For us, it's like, well, how are they supposed to make it happen, you know, after that tool is taken away from them?

So our thing is they should have continued access to the same tools or new tools or modified tools because there's no template for every family. There's no one solution for every family because not every family's the same. So if we can model that and say, "Look, our families have done this and have helped modify and create these resources, and we're learning from them and creating based off of their demand," it works.

Our families are moving out of poverty. Unfortunately, many of them slip back in. Why? Because these resources are taken away from them. So how about we not take them away from them, and let's see what happens. And we're seeing families succeed

[00:15:59] George Koster: Stephanie, tell a little bit about two things that I found really fascinating, where one, I'd like to know more about the demonstration projects that you worked on, and then also you're gathering all this data and then you have now come up with this entire platform that you're using the data that enables customers/clients to use that data, and it seems like it's a shared data.

They're providing you data, you're using the data, and I'd be interested to figure out what you're doing with the data as well. But let's turn to demonstration projects. Right. One, was the data platform itself as a demonstration project?

[00:16:29] Stephanie Zamudio: What we do with data, right, is we're able to identify trends, right?

What are things that families are most often tend to be occurring? What are reoccurring trends, right? And what resource can we create to help alleviate whatever trend is happening? Another thing that we're doing with data is also showing that information back to families. This is where you were in the beginning.

This is where you were along the way. This is where you are now. What took place Within that time range and what worked, what didn't work, what things did you encounter? Because of the data that we collect, we are able to go to other social pr- service programs, to other agencies, and be like, "Look, right, numbers speak."

People like to see numbers. People like to see data. That's what gets their engines going. And because we collect this data and because we are able to show concrete data, people become more open to operating in a non-conventional way, 'cause the way we operate is pretty unorthodox. Give families continued access to resources, reward families for doing well.

It's not something that is normal, right? Usually, you extend a handout to families that are in need, but what happens when they're doing better but are not quite there to stand completely without any tool? And so our data allows us to demonstrate that to other agencies, right? This is what we're doing and it's working.

Try it. What's the worst that's gonna happen? You go back to a method that you're already using?

[00:17:59] George Koster: Can you talk a little bit about the trends that you've discovered through the gathering of the data? And then from the trends that you've identified, what are examples of you taking that trend information and data and then going out to a social service organization, for example, to say, "We've discovered X and you need to provide Y"?

[00:18:16] Stephanie Zamudio: That would be a whole nother team that goes and analyzes all that data and takes that over. What I can comment on is things that we have done with that data, right, within our very own resource hub, right? For example, our family time resource was created based off of something that we saw and heard from our families.

We're working, we don't get to spend quality time with our families, therefore, there is a lack, there's a gap in there, right? And anything can happen within that gap, and our children's wellbeing is so important, but we're not on top of it as like we would, as we would like to because we're working day in and day out.

But if I take some time off to spend that quality time with my family, then I'm struggling at the end of the month when I need to figure out how am I gonna pay for XYZ thing that's due. So because of that trend that we discovered and because of families reaching out to us and telling us this directly, we created family time.

And so what we do is families apply for family time and tell us what it is that they would like to do with their families and why, the impact that it would have on their families and on their extended communities And what they would lose if they were to take whatever amount of hours off from work, we compensate that.

So instead of you losing time from work and instead of you losing finances that are critical to your family's wellbeing so that you can tend to something else that's critical to your family's wellbeing, like actually spending time with your family and being abreast of what's going on, we will give you what you would have lost.

But we're not just giving that away. That awarded and approved, that application is approved when we see that families are really investing in themselves. We're all about investing in families that are investing in themselves and directly to families.

[00:19:59] George Koster: What have you seen in the way of impact?

[00:20:01] Stephanie Zamudio: Oh, are you kidding me?

Our children's grades are like... If you see where they are when they start, right, and where they are later, many families are like, "My kids' grades and attendance is going up. I'm able to spend more time and be more in tune with what's happening." And not only that, but because families are giving us data on a monthly basis, they tell us, "Because we need to give you this information, we have to be on top of it.

We have to be accountable for what we're reporting. And so we're more in tune with why does it say that this has four absences when I know that I'm dropping you off at school every single day? Or why is this grade going down if I'm giving you tutoring, if I'm finding these resources for tutoring? Or maybe the tutoring that you're receiving isn't helping you the way you should be getting the help that you should be receiving."

And so that's definitely one of the positive trends that we've seen. A huge percentage of our families, their savings goes up. Their monthly household income goes up Their health improves because we also ask about that. How was your overall health for the last month? Who went to the doctor's and why?

Things may be stress-related, migraines and whatnot, and they're like, "Oh my God." They can identify triggers, right? And the reason we have seen these positive outcomes is because families are telling us, "We have to give you this information. We have to report this info, so therefore we have to be more aware of what's going on within our own lives."

[00:21:24] George Koster: Thank you very much, Stephanie. I'm gonna turn back to Caroline, and my question to you earlier was, is it possible to create a different index for the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, or for San Francisco itself? The funding is allotted based on federal numbers, which, as you stated, are obviously much lower than the actual numbers that people end up paying to live here, for example.

[00:21:47] Caroline Danielson: Let me say again that the federal poverty level for a family of four, roughly speaking, is now about $24,000 a year. If you take into account the cost of living adjustments that we make in order to make that basic level, that poverty threshold, more accurate to circumstances that families face today, in San Francisco, it rises to close to $37,000, so that's quite a bit higher.

The state as a whole, if you average that out, it's around $30,000. So those things are really quite starkly different. The federal poverty line does not vary at all across the 50 states. It varies by family size, but not by where you live. And so to your point, the way that we gauge eligibility for programs is typically pegged to some percentage of that federal poverty line.

That's not always the case, but it's certainly the case for many important programs like the CalFresh or food stamps program, like school meal programs, like the WIC program. So that implies that there's potentially some mismatch between the level of, level of need that you might face in, say, a place like San Francisco and the level of need you might face somewhere else in the state or in the country and the federal poverty line.

Is there the potential to create a different measure that would apply to, say, the Bay Area? Certainly. To have it be used, I think, is another question because the funding for many programs flows from state or federal governments, and it would take a reconsideration of how we measure poverty and how we allocate funds for poverty programs at both the state and the federal levels for that to happen.

[00:23:32] George Koster: With all of the research that your team has done, the institute's done, have you seen the work that you've done in collecting the data and telling the story of the differentiation between where we get money from a federal state basis on the ground? Has that led to any new policy? Is there any new policy in the works you think that are, that is being considered that could concha- conceivably change how we index poverty?

[00:23:57] Caroline Danielson: I think the high cost of living is certainly something that's in the policy mix. I think a sustained attention to what it would mean to shift our baseline for poverty, that is yet to come. If it is in the works, it's certainly not a full-blown discussion. I think some evidence of the attention to the cost of living that we've seen recently in California is the, now the state law that will raise the minimum wage over a number of years to $15 an hour.

That's a new discussion. The state EITC that began this year is another effort for the state to add on to the federal credit in order to he- help particularly low-earning families to bump up their... So those kinds of discussions in different parts of the policy world seem to be certainly happening, but a kind of global discussion, I would say no, I haven't seen real sustained evidence of that as of yet.

[00:24:51] George Koster: Thank you. And ITC is- The

[00:24:53] Caroline Danielson: EITC, sorry, is the earned income tax credit, which in our research sort of is neck and neck with the CalFresh Food Assistance Program in reducing poverty by the largest amount of the, of all the safety net programs. We consider it's one of the biggest in helping families to make ends meet.

The reason that the EITC is successful is because it's funded fairly substantially, so the federal outlay i- in the nation as a whole is above $50 billion a year, and it reaches higher up into the economic spectrum than some other programs. So a family making about $50,000, if they have three children, can still be eligible for the EITC, whereas they'd be already ineligible for other programs, say like school meals or CalWORKS welfare assistance.

So that it helps families who are earning and earning a little bit higher in the income spectrum than many other programs.

[00:25:44] George Koster: And then the CalFresh program is a food subsidy program.

[00:25:48] Caroline Danielson: CalFresh is a food assistance program. Families get an amount monthly on what's called an EBT card, which is an ATM-like debit card that can be used in grocery stores to buy groceries.

It's also possible to buy seeds to grow food. It's not possible to buy sort of prepared meals for sh- most people or other household items that you might find in a grocery store. And those benefits help families to supplement their food budgets to make ends meet.

[00:26:13] George Koster: And I wanna go back to Angela. And through the research of the article itself, what were some of the solutions that you saw being attempted?

I know some of the... You identified, for example, in health here in City of San Francisco. But other efforts within the City of San Francisco or here locally that you've seen that s- local government or organizations are attempting?

[00:26:37] Angela Woodall: That's a difficult question to answer. Because one of the things I found was that while there are things being done by the city, they were- Not nearly...

They just didn't address the reality of the situation as far as I could tell, and that was one of the really most troubling things to me, was the lack of accountability and the lack of real solutions that are being put forward. And we addressed that in the story when we looked at the different measures that were on the ballot at the time.

This was before the November 2015 election. You know, right now I'm sort of looking at the list, and we did a chart of... Called How San Francisco Plans to Shield Residents from Runaway Prices. So I worked on this, and it was also really great to see how generous San Francisco is, but how few policies, how few solutions really address families or even individuals, but anybody who's in that m- kind of median income area.

The reality really is if you're very poor in San Francisco, there's probably more help for you. If you're very rich, well, things are more or less taken care of. You have your own obstacles. But if you're anywhere in between, it's really difficult. And so I'm looking at this chart right now, and I'm looking at the housing, for example.

So That was a real issue is of the policies that were put forward, including Measure A, which was the housing bond for building more affordable housing, there was really very little in there for people who rent who are just your normal everyday people, middle class, right, middle class people. There were some tax breaks on secondary units that are used as vacation homes.

That was one of the things that was put forward. Offer a tax break to owners who help increase the supply of housing when they sell vacant units. Those are things the city could do, but I didn't really, I didn't really see how those were gonna help somebody who, you know, especially if you're a student.

If you're trying to find a place to live in San Francisco because you want to go to school at SF State, I'm not really sure how those would help, and I don't know if building more housing is really the way out of this. Food, the CalFresh program in the state, San Francisco goes out of its way to make sure people have enough to eat to address food insecurity.

There are things called the Eat San Francisco, and that's an program that offers fresh produce vouchers to Tenderloin residents who have children younger than five years old who, or who have diet-related health conditions. That's a sort of one of those great programs that I would love to see expanded.

For now, it's only in the Tenderloin, and it's only really a pilot program. Transportation, like I said, there's free Muni passes. San Francisco offers free Muni passes for children and teens. That's funded from a grant from Google. BART and AC Transit launched a pilot program to increase late-night bus services between San Francisco and the East Bay, which if you think about that, those are parents commuting back and forth to work, or workers.

Maybe not. It's not only parents. The city officials were thinking about, I think there was a consideration of hiking the top transportation impact fees paid by developers of commercial projects. That was one of the policies put forward, and also investing in public transit. So if you're following this, the voters approved a $500 million bond in 2014 for improvements to Muni, and that may also...

There's talk now of another round of funding to the system. The childcare, I would love to address this in, in childcare. There's really a lot of problems with the way... And this is not a San Francisco issue. This is really a state issue around childcare. Of course, we also saw an increase in the minimum wage, and so that by 2018 will be up to $15.

Those are all things that are happening. They may not all be specific to San Francisco. They are some statewide. I think that they really sort of indicate that there's a lot more that needs to be done. The political will has to be there, and it also has to be a consideration really of people and not only of developers and business interests.

So those are the things that seem to be really driving the policy right now.

[00:30:54] Eric Estrada: You are listening to Voices of the Community. We are at the halfway point of our archive highlight episode. Our guests today are Angela Woodall, an award-winning journalist and lead writer and researcher for the San Francisco Public Press, Caroline Danielson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, and Stephanie Zamudio, community liaison at the Family Independence Initiative, as they examine the true cost of living in San Francisco and how it affects struggling Bay Area families.

We rely on your support to produce these stories. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation at voicesofthecommunity.com. And while you're there, dive deeper into this episode and explore our other series. Now let's get back to the discussion.

[00:31:42] George Koster: And I wanna turn back to Stephanie and ask, are there solutions that you've identified through your interaction and work with your customers and the data collection that you've either have started down or that you haven't gotten to but you'd like to get to?

[00:31:55] Stephanie Zamudio: What I can really speak on are solutions that families have found for themselves, because we're all about families are capable to figure things out for themselves 'cause they're the ones that know their situation better than anyone else. Childcare was mentioned. It's a huge issue. Our families are made up of children, in many cases younger than 18, and so they turn to one another to help figure out the childcare situation.

Like, "I can pick up your kid in the mornings on these days if you can pick them up on the other days," or, "I can do pickup, can you do drop-off?" When they hear of a resource like a Head Start, a new Head Start program opening up, it runs like wildfire Everybody knows because one person tells the other, and the other tells the other, and the word within their communities, their circles spreads.

Another thing that they're doing, right, for after-school programs, parents are volunteering at agencies and after-school programs where they're not getting paid, but what they're being compensated with is an in for their kid for this after-school program. So they are essentially paying for their childcare not with money, but with time.

And the fact that they have that option I think is amazing because in many cases, the money isn't there. But parents are more than willing to give the time, and not only because they know that their child is going to have that service, but because it also gives them the opportunity to see their child and spend more time with their child because they're in the same program working.

So it's like, "You're being taken care of, but I can also keep an eye on you." Jobs an issue. Recently, we had a family... Our families work in groups for a few reasons, but what happened was one of the husbands, where he works, had an opening for a food prep four weekends, a Saturday or a Sunday, four days throughout the month, and they needed someone to fill in.

So before they went out, they said, "No, I can find you someone," because he was like, "I always know someone that wants to pick up an extra job." And so that's another way that they help each other get that extra side job so they can have that extra income. Another issue, transportation. A thing that we're seeing often is that those that know how to drive and are now able to get licenses with this new law that was passed recently are teaching each other how to drive so that they can be like, "Come on now.

This is our in. Let's all get our licenses. There's no reason for us to not do it anymore." So they're motivating one another in not only sharing the knowledge that they know with the resource exchange, but actually taking the time to train one another for things like driving, creating a solution for transportation.

They do things like lending circles. A lending circle is when a group of people pool their money together for X amount of months. So let's say there's a group of six families, and they all say, "Okay, we're gonna form a lending circle. We're all gonna put in $200 a month. And for the next six months, that pot of money is going to rotate to one of us so that by the end of the six months, all of us will have gotten this pot of money at zero interest, right?

And we can apply it to whatever our need is." So when they have their license, their next goal is, "I need a car." But I can't go to a financial institution and ask for a loan because I won't get it, or it's gonna be a super high interest. So what do they do? They created the solution. They turn to their lending circles and say, "This is what I can give.

Let's create this lending circle." They figure out how many people they need and what they need to give every single month so that money is available for them to purchase the car, which will, in essence, help alleviate the transportation stress. So families are creating these solutions all on their own.

[00:35:52] George Koster: The lending circle's a wonderful example, but one of the biggest issues with low-income and extremely low-income community members is a lack of a relationship with the financial institution or the bank, right? There's all the check-cashing, which have outrageous usury fees, where it costs you 10%, if you're lucky, to 300% to cash your check, for example.

So have you seen anything within your community where people are helping each other or that you guys are helping or facilitating?

[00:36:17] Stephanie Zamudio: So one of our resources within our resource hub is because we identified that trend of informal lending circles, we have partnered with a San Francisco local agency and have formalized these lending circles.

So these families that normally would do this on their own are now doing it with us in partnership with this other organization, and because they are paying monthly, it is reported back to the credit bureau. And what does that happen? They, those that didn't have credit all of a sudden are building credit.

Those who didn't have the best of credit are improving their credit And that in turn will eventually help them be able to turn to a financial institution, whereas once upon a time, that may not have even, not only not been a possibility, but it wouldn't have even crossed their minds because they would've been like, "Why bother?"

But now, not only does this help them in regards to their credit score, but it empowers them as people. And so that's definitely, uh, something that we have done to address that.

[00:37:20] George Koster: Stephanie, is there anything else that we haven't covered that you guys have discovered in your interaction with families and through empowering them?

[00:37:28] Stephanie Zamudio: We are so fortunate to be working with the families that are willing to share their lives with us and teach us. And it's not anything that we've identified. It's something that we have the privilege of being able to recognize from our platform and be like, "This has always taken place." Families have done things for themselves since the beginning of time because they've set goals for themselves.

What we get to do is broadcast all of the awesomeness that they're doing, their efforts, their initiatives, and we haven't created any solutions. We just have the privilege of, of sharing the solutions that families are creating for themselves. So does FII have solutions? No. But does FII want to broadcast that families have the solutions?

Yes. Does F- FII is all about go back to the source. Hear straight from them because they know, and they know best, and let's learn from them. Let's take a step back and not be the ones that are telling folks what to do. Let folks tell you what needs to take place.

[00:38:32] George Koster: Do you have any recommendations that have come out from your interaction with families that you would like the state or city government or business leaders to perhaps enact to help your families?

[00:38:44] Stephanie Zamudio: I would have to take it back to the source. Reach out to your families. Reach out to those that you're trying to make laws and policies around. Don't turn to someone who knows or think they know or who has research. Go straight to the source. Listen straight to them. Empower families. Give control back to families.

Allow capital to go back to families. You want change. We're cre- we're trying to create all these solutions for families. Why not turn to families? That would be my greatest recommendation.

[00:39:17] George Koster: Thank you, Stephanie. I wanna go back to Caroline. Given the institute study and all of the data crunching, et cetera, what are recommendations that you would, your team would have to perhaps find solutions or m- m- make recommendations for policy or legislation or, uh, participation by community, government, business members?

[00:39:37] Caroline Danielson: So to go back to the sort of basics of how we see in the survey data that we use that families make ends meet, it's certainly true that most families, and even those with children or young children, are working. And so that earnings makes up the biggest share of what it takes to make ends meet for families, whether they're above poverty or below poverty.

And so I think US social safety net policy, so programs to help those who, where earnings are not sufficient, has turned over the past at least two decades towards supporting work, and predates even the 1990s welfare reform of the first Clinton administration. And I think that is pretty solidly entrenched in our approach to policymaking around helping families to make ends meet, and I think that it's reflected in the data and the fact that families are often...

that for the most part, earnings makes up the largest share of what families h- have at hand in their resources. And so that safety net policies that aim to boost, both in the short run and in the longer term, the family's abilities to earn and to supplement their earnings is a successful policy. I think the effort to think about the varying cost of living across the nation is something that's not just happening in California and not happening only at the Public Policy Institute of California, but it is still at its initial stages, and exactly where that will go, I'm not sure I can predict.

But I think that conversation about how we think should think differently in different regions of the state is something that will be ongoing.

[00:41:16] George Koster: Anything that you would personally like to see happen?

[00:41:19] Caroline Danielson: I think it's always the case that when we look at safety net programs, that we see a patchwork of programs that are aimed at, uh, that have different purposes, that are administered by different parts of government or maybe in collaboration with community-based organizations or other methods like going through the tax system.

So we have very much a patchwork system in the United States and in California for administering what we call the social safety net. I think- As a policy matter, it seems reasonable to think that reducing barriers to accessing programs for which people are eligible is a sensible thing to do. So barring any changes to programs, we know that there are somewhere around a quarter of folks eligible for the federal EITC who don't actually get it in California because they haven't filed taxes, or perhaps they've filed taxes with not the correct information, but it's more because they haven't filed taxes perhaps, or they haven't applied for CalFresh food assistance, or they haven't filled in an application for school meals.

And so lowering those barriers so that w- at least if you're already eligible, that you're actually accessing the program seems to be a sensible thing, at least a first step

[00:42:28] George Koster: Angela, with all of the ongoing effort, what would you come up with as recommendations with, for example, City of San Francisco, county, our business leaders, real estate developers, regional players?

[00:42:42] Angela Woodall: I do wanna address that through a story, but I wanna address one of the recommendations which is at the state level, but it's so important to the local level as well, and that is the subsidy program for childcare. So the state's income cutoff to qualify for subsidies is based on the 2005 state median income.

So what does that mean? So that means the state hasn't been updating anything, the cutoffs, the income ceilings for years. And so one of the women that one of our reporters talked to, her name is Julia, she had done a great job of taking care of herself and her family. Her husband was in prison. She's taking care of her daughter.

She had been homeless for a while. She went to school. She graduates, she gets a job, and she is making money, just probably, you know, maybe 30, $30,000, $35,000 a year at the most, right? So she's... Her daughter is able to go to childcare. Her daughter's four years old. She's able to go to childcare because of the subsidy, and it's a good childcare program.

Now, Julia actually got a better job, and she was going to make $50,000 a year. So what happens, her subsidy will be cut off. So she can't afford her rent, which is actually not in a great... It's not in a particularly nice building in Hunters Point, Bayview Hunters Point. She can't afford that already, so it's hard to afford as it is, but she's got the childcare subsidies.

So her income goes up, but everything that she would be able to make to move or to have a better quality of life is now going to be absorbed by childcare because her subsidy will be cut off, and that's because, like I said, the, the income cutoff to qualify for subsidies is based on the 2005 state median income.

So one of the things that we can do is to address that, to say our, to our lawmakers in Sacramento, "You need to actually do this. This has to be a policy." Because they look at it every, I think they every year, but at least, like, regularly, so they know this is a problem. They know that they, what the, that the income levels or ceilings are out of whack.

They just aren't changing it That's, that's the one thing I see as being really big. And the other is to look at FII, the solutions that the community is finding for itself, and is really amazing. That depends on there being a community. If we enact laws or we reject proposals that make communities affordable for everyone that lives in them, and I'm thinking right now of the Mission District and Prop I that was rejected.

Now, Prop I may or may not have been the best solution. That's debatable. But if people can't have a community, they can't help each other out, and that is not just somebody who is Latino. That's not just an African American community. That's any community of any income level. You may make $80,000 a year in San Francisco and have a very hard time making ends meet here.

So what we saw and what I really felt strongly about in the story was the accountability part, which was saying to our elected officials, "We're going to hold you accountable for making decisions that actually benefit the people and don't benefit special interest, don't benefit your business donors, your political donors, and things like that."

And so one thing I would really sort of, what I'm always agitating for in some way, is to hold your s- elected officials accountable. This year in November, there are five supervisor seats opening up. That's a very big deal depending on who fills those seats. So if we dog them, if we dog the mayor, if we're constantly looking at the ways that money influences politics in San Francisco, not just by political donors.

Those are important. San Francisco has a fantastic transparency regulations. There's a great website, the San Francisco Ethics Commission. Almost nobody but the lobbyists and the ethics commissioners attend the meetings, and reporters as well. So it's our duty to help take the information from those commission meetings and give that to the public.

But it's r- you're relying on third-hand information when you read the newspaper, and you're relying on the quality of the reporter. So go to the meetings, or dog the mayor. Look at the San Francisco Ethics Commission website and find out who's giving money to who. But also those, those kind of less than transparent things, so the lobbyist get-togethers with the politicians, or the luncheons, or the coffee with each other.

Who's talking to who? What kind of regulation is being set? What are they basing their decisions on? Like, where did, where is the information coming from? We seem to take it sort of at face that the budget and analyst, legislative analyst's office does a very good job of reporting the facts, but we found big problems with the data that they use and some things that have actually become law.

Prop J was one of those. That was the proposition in November that helped legacy businesses. It was based on outdated data, uh, that stopped in 2011, and yet it was used to quantify and also justify legislation that had to do with 2014, 2015 problems. And so just really being informed, really dogging your elected officials, and really understanding how politics work in San Francisco.

It's fairly simple. Money talks , but, you know, we really need to sort of be engaged in that process. What does that mean when money, when you say money talks?

[00:48:16] George Koster: Thank you very much. That was a good overview there and wrap-up. So getting people engaged, I'm gonna now turn to each of you and ask how can our listeners who've now listened to the show and say, "Wow, I really wanna help," how can someone, Stephanie, for example, get engaged in supporting FII's efforts?

[00:48:32] Stephanie Zamudio: So we are always looking to grow because we wanna learn from our families And so if you are interested in being one of our families that's taking that stance and saying, "Hear from me, listen to me, learn from me, let me teach you," reach out to us. I can be reached at stephanie@fii.org. That would be the most direct way to get ahold of me.

Check out our website fii.org. Our Facebook is Family Independence Initiative, @fiinational Twitter. I am more than happy to answer any questions, and we are more than happy to hear from our families. So if that's something that, you know, y- your grain of salt that you wanna put forth, reach out to us. Reach out to me and I'd love to answer any questions that you have.

[00:49:23] George Koster: Thank you, Stephanie. And Caroline?

[00:49:26] Caroline Danielson: So the Public Policy Institute of California publishes reports that are always freely available on our website, which is www.ppic.org. We also host free events open to the public in our San Francisco office and also in Sacramento, and you're welcome to sign up for our mailing list and learn about our publications and events by going to our website.

And I can be reached at danielson@ppic.org.

[00:49:49] George Koster: And are there, spend some quality time with your reports, are there reports that you would recommend people go to and read to get more context?

[00:49:56] Caroline Danielson: If folks are interested in our poverty research and, or in safety net programs in California, we have a series of what we call Just the Facts, which are two-page fact sheets, and they have some basic information and some figures to help people understand both the statewide and the local context.

And so you can look up San Francisco's poverty rate and compare it to poverty in other parts of the state and look at the social safety net and how it actually reduces poverty, particularly for children, by looking at those fact sheets that are also on our website.

[00:50:27] George Koster: Thank you, Caroline. And Angela, turning to you, how can e- everyone interact with not only your work, but recommendations for people to dive into a very well-thought-out series on San Francisco Public Press, and thanks to Michael Stoll and his co-publisher and partner, Lila LaHood.

Great work. How can people get engaged be- besides becoming members and subscribers?

[00:50:47] Angela Woodall: So San Francisco Public Press is a nonprofit organization, and so everyone is welcome to donate. There is a board of directors. You can become engaged through the board. You can also join as a member. So that's just the Public Press.

But if you wanna engage with the material, the website is sanfranciscopublicpress.org, or sfpublicpress.org. You can find all the reporting there. The best way to contact me is @AngelaWoodall, that's Twitter, @AngelaWoodall. And I would also say engaging just with the material, there's so much information online, and there are reports, the reports that Caroline is talking about, that her organization is responsible, that FII, the incredible data that they're producing.

Become engaged with these folks that, that may be off your beaten track, but that are there and available. And also just holding your elected officials accountable. So that's one way you can g- engage with our material and use it to really look at what City Hall is doing and thinking about what the implications are.

[00:51:50] Eric Estrada: That's it for this episode of Voices of the Community. We've spent this episode exploring a troubling gap, the difference between how we officially measure poverty and what families actually experience every day. For too many people, the numbers on paper don't match the reality of paying rent, buying groceries, or affording childcare.

Outdated metrics and lack of action can leave families feeling invisible, as if their struggles don't matter. But science is showing just how much they do matter. When we talk about poverty, we often focus on budgets and bank accounts, but research tells us there's so much more at stake. For example, a large study of nearly six thousand children found that a family's socioeconomic status doesn't affect their wallet.

It can shape their child's brain. The study showed that the differences in income, education, and neighborhood resources are linked to changes in how a child's brain connects and functions. The research, published in Translational Psychiatry, titled Brain-Wide Functional Connectivity Patterns Support General Cognitive Ability and Mediate Effects of Socioeconomic Status in Youth, based its data from five thousand nine hundred thirty-seven children, found that socioeconomic status influences brain-wide connectivity patterns, which mediate about fifteen point six percent of the relationship between a family's resources and a child's cognitive ability.

The researchers used advanced predictive modeling to identify these patterns, and in leave one site out cross-validation, the connectivity patterns generalized across all nineteen study sites account for eighteen percent of the variance in cognitive scores. This means the link between socioeconomic status and brain development isn't just theoretical It's measurable, consistent reality.

These connections play a key role in learning, problem-solving, and emotional regulation, and the effects aren't just small or temporary. The study also revealed that different facets of a child's environment, like parental education, income, and neighborhood disadvantage, all leave unique lasting signatures on the brain.

The researchers even captured a composite socioeconomic score, combining household income, parental education, and neighborhood disadvantage to capture a full picture of the child's environment. This allowed them to show how these factors interact and compound, revealing that the brain's connectivity patterns reflect the cumulative impact of the child's socioeconomic experience.

For instance, living in a disadvantaged neighborhood can impact the brain's sensory motor networks, while financial stress might affect areas tied to focus and decision-making. When a family is priced out of their home and forced to move to a less resourced area, it's not just an inconvenience. It's a change that can ripple through the child's development in ways we're only beginning to understand.

Here's the hard truth. Our current policies often don't reflect these realities. Take the federal poverty line. For a family of four, it is set at around twenty-three thousand five hundred dollars a year. But in a city like San Francisco, a family of four needs over thirty-six thousand dollars just to cover the basics.

That gap means families who are barely scraping by might not qualify for the help they desperately need. Or consider a mother who finally earns a little more money, only to lose her childcare subsidy as a result. She's caught in a cycle where every step forward feels like two steps back. And now we know that this kind of instability doesn't just stress her out, it can affect her child's brain development, too.

We can't solve this with old data and outdated assumptions. We need policies that reflect the true cost of living and the true cost of not acting. That means updating how we measure poverty, so it includes the real expenses families face today. It means investing in neighborhoods, schools, and programs that give every child a fair chance, and it means holding our leaders accountable for creating systems that work for everyone, not just the fortunate few.

This isn't just about numbers on a spreadsheet. It's about the future we're building for our children. When we ignore the realities of poverty, we're not just failing families today, we're limiting the potential of the next generation. But when we act with intention and compassion, we're giving every child the opportunity to grow, learn, and thrive.

So let's demand better. Let's ask for policies that reflect the true challenges families face. Let's support leaders who prioritize solutions over politics. And let's remember that behind every statistic, there's a family working hard to build a better life. Before we close, let's recognize today's voices.

Angela Woodall, an award-winning journalist and lead writer and researcher for the San Francisco Public Press. Angela spearheaded the publication's special report on the rising cost of living, diving deep into the data to uncover how housing, healthcare, childcare, transportation, and food costs are squeezing Bay Area families.

Caroline Danielson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. Caroline led groundbreaking poverty research through the California Poverty Measure, a more accurate tool for understanding economic hardship that accounts for regional cost of living and the role of safety net programs.

And Stephanie Zamudio, community liaison at the Former Family Independence Initiative, a national organization that partners directly with low to middle income families to learn from their experiences and amplify the solutions they create for themselves. We produce this Archive Highlight series to give you context, to show that crises we face today aren't new, and neither are the solutions.

If you wanna go deeper, visit voicesofthecommunity.com and click on the Archive series where you'll find full bios for every guest, links to every original episode, and resources from organizations doing this work on the ground. Explore our archive of frontline voices on local wealth inequality and community solutions from our COVID-19 special series.

Episode 47 with Tipping Point Episode 57 with Joaquin Torres and SFOEWD, Mission Asset Fund in episode 96, the Glide Foundation in episode 42, and Rebuilding Together San Francisco in episode 77. And if this show gave you something, put a value on it. Your donation directly funds the next series. Go to voicesofthecommunity.com and click on the donate button to support our work.

Now back to George Koster to wrap up our episode.

[00:58:35] George Koster: These shows are only possible because of our dedicated team, Associate Producer Eric Estrada for his co-hosting and technical wizardry, and designer Kasey Nance of Citron Studios for making the show look exceptional. A special thanks to Dr. Cecil Hale for supporting Voices of the Community at KCSF, and to broadcast partners KSFP, LPFM 102.5 FM in San Francisco, and KPCA LPFM 103.3 FM in Petaluma, and of course, to KCSF, that you can stream on TuneIn, for amplifying these voices.

I'm George Koster in San Francisco, and join us for our next episode as we continue lifting the voices that shape and strengthen our communities. Thank you for listening, supporting, and sharing. Until then, remember, your voice matters.

Thanks to our CoProduction Partner

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