← GovLove - A Podcast About Local Government
GovLove - A Podcast About Local Government
#726 Elevate Boulder and Guaranteed Income Programs with Jamie Hackbarth and Elizabeth Crowe
00:51:29
Loading summary
Transcript90 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:14]
B
Coming to you from the Twin Cities region in Minnesota, this is govlup, a podcast about local government. I'm Lauren Palmer. I'm with Everstrive Solutions and I'm also your host for this episode. GovLive is produced by ELGL, the Engaging Local Government Leaders Network. You can support GovLA by becoming a member of ELGL, so visit ELGL.org today to learn more. Today I have two guests. Jamie Hackbarth is a senior program manager at Aid Kit, a Colorado based technology platform helping governments administer direct cash, aid and public benefit programs with speed, transparency and dignity. And my second guest is Elizabeth Crow, the Deputy Director with the Housing and Human Services Department for the City of Boulder, Colorado. Jamie and Elizabeth are talking with us today about Elevate Boulder, a guaranteed income pilot program that is turning heads for both its outcomes and its approach. Jamie and Elizabeth, welcome to govlove.
- [01:10]
A
Thank you so much for having me here.
- [01:12]
B
It's great. I'm thrilled you could both join us. So we are going to kick things off with our lightning round just to get to know you a little better and get you warmed up for our conversation. So I'm going to throw these questions out to each of you. Jamie, I'm going to let you go first with this first one. What are you reading, watching or listening to right now that you'd recommend to our govlove audience?
- [01:35]
A
Yes, I always love this question. This definitely shows my nerdy side. I was recently on a little beach getaway and I was just looking at the shelf looking for an easy beach read and then I ended up picking up Freakonomics by Stephen Dubnar and love it. And I had never read it before and I absolutely love it. I'm only in the middle, the middle of it. And it really challenges just like, you know, our conventional take, I think on some things in history and shows a different light of it on human behavior and also a lot about incentives. So I highly recommend it to anybody that likes to nerd out on economics.
- [02:12]
B
I love your enthusiasm about kind of a academic book. Like an oldie but a goodie. I don't know how old that was.
- [02:19]
A
It is an oldie but a goodie. Yeah.
- [02:21]
B
It seems like it's a minute old.
- [02:23]
A
Yeah. 2005, I looked it up.
- [02:25]
B
Okay. It's 20 years. Okay, that's good. But it still resonates for you. Like yeah, awesome. Good one to recommend maybe to some of our like really emerging of the engaging leaders who maybe hadn't heard about that text. So that's, that's Good. That's a good one. Elizabeth, what about you? What are you reading, watching or listening to that our audience might enjoy?
- [02:48]
C
Yeah, thank you. I'm going to take a little bit of a turn from what Jamie shared. So. So one of the books that I recently finished and absolutely recommend is called Homegoing by YA Gyasi. Yeah, it's, it's been out there for just a little while and I just finally got to it. It's just beautiful, heartbreaking and one of those books where to the last chapter. You're you, you know, get a little, get a little surprised and see how everything comes together for these generations of characters. So highly recommend that. And then even another still departure from, from that and from Freakonomics is I'm loving the Pit.
- [03:35]
B
Oh yes.
- [03:36]
C
It's a nice, you know, loving the characters. Getting a bit of a charge on the energy and it's just very touching and, and real. So I, I love the humanity of the that as well.
- [03:47]
B
Love and echo both of those recommendations. Homegoing I read recently. It was also recommended by another one of my govlove guests when I asked this question, Shani Leichter from Massachusetts. She turned me onto that book and anytime guests, any answers that guests give to this question I immediately put into my library reserve. So yes, that was a hard read but a great read. And I love the Pit too. Right. I just, I just watched the latest episode last night.
- [04:22]
C
Yeah.
- [04:22]
B
Yeah, the not so yeah, I just watched the last episode last night. I was a little bit behind and can't wait to see what happens next.
- [04:29]
C
Yeah.
- [04:30]
B
Okay, next question. Elizabeth will let you go first. What was your first job and what did it teach you? And by first job I mean like your first real W2 wages kind of job.
- [04:44]
C
Yeah, well after babysitting and I had to think about this for a minute.
- [04:48]
A
I'm.
- [04:48]
C
I'm pretty sure it was very, very short lived job working for one of those mail in cassette companies. I'm showing my age range here.
- [05:03]
B
I know I'm like our younger listeners have no idea what you're talking about. But I do. Please explain.
- [05:08]
C
You do. Okay, so a company you would get a little catalog in the mail at all sorts of music cassette tapes and you'd indicate which ones you want. You mail that in and you'd receive it in the mail. It was just a mail order music shop and I recall there was one of these companies had set up and what now we would refer to as probably a pop up situation in my town in western my hometown in western Michigan. And Then I, I vaguely recall that one day they just weren't there anymore.
- [05:50]
B
Okay.
- [05:53]
C
I, I don't remember much about that. After that I had an illustrious career and you know, kind of coffee beanery when this first opened up in Western in. But I think that was probably the first one and what it taught me was roll with it. What might seem certain might not be so certain. Yeah. So I, I think that's what I learned from that experience, which of course is a good lesson.
- [06:20]
B
Great lesson to learn. Early in the career. You think they like Napster launched and so that's when they closed up shop.
- [06:28]
C
Oh, the market evolved in like the mid-80s.
- [06:33]
B
Okay.
- [06:33]
C
Yeah, yeah. Little further back than that.
- [06:37]
B
Okay, got it. All right, Jamie, what about you? Tell us about your first job.
- [06:42]
A
Yeah, I love that. Elizabeth. I remember doing CD sales.
- [06:46]
C
Okay, great.
- [06:47]
A
That was the next.
- [06:48]
C
Yeah, yes. Yeah.
- [06:50]
A
And then Napster. But my first job. Yeah. To also babysat, but actual paycheck. Paycheck job was being a hostess at a local Irish pub here in Columbus, Ohio where I originally from. I was only 15 and then that turned into an illustrious career in the being a waitress and bartender kind of across various things, but taught me a lot honestly of how to think on my feet. You know, customer service, adaptability, prioritization. Like there's just so much that goes into the service industry. And really loved the fast paced taste
- [07:28]
C
energy of it as well.
- [07:30]
A
So it was a fun first job that and kept my foot in the door for a while on it for years after.
- [07:36]
C
Yeah.
- [07:37]
B
I've never worked in the service industry, but I have a friend who did and said it should be like mandatory. It should be like a high school graduation requirement that everybody has to do a stint in the service injury industry because exactly what you said. Like you learn a lot and you learn about human decency.
- [07:55]
A
Yes, very much so.
- [07:57]
B
Yeah. Okay, great, great example. All right, one more question for both of you. Jamie will let you go first. Tell us about your last live entertainment experience. So it could be a music concert, a theater, sporting event. What's the last thing you saw in person?
- [08:14]
A
Yes. So just a couple weeks ago I went to go see live stand up comedy of Chelsea Handler. Actually she was in town with went with a close friends. I love standup comedy and something about just being in I would say like the live space with collective laughter at kind of the large scale just always charges me in a way that also feels like connection to humanity sometimes when it's disconnected. I recommend it. She's hilarious. A little bit inappropriate, of course but as is comedy, so, you know, it's
- [08:47]
B
hard to not find that in comedy.
- [08:49]
C
Good.
- [08:50]
B
Elizabeth, what about you?
- [08:52]
C
Recently, a couple friends and I went to see a play that was written by a friend of a friend called Daughtering, written by Nicole, Sorry, Nina, Alice Miller. And it was playing here in Boulder at the Derry Arts Center. And it was a really touching story of three generations of women who in. In the same family, kind of alternately and from their own perspectives and having a shared experience around kind of the death of other family members and kind of the hanging on, you know, to the love, but also some of the pain and trying to figure out how to relate to each other through, you know, through these, you know, really important milestones and life events. It was. It was really nice. I hadn't seen a play in a minute, and so it was also just nice to have that experience.
- [09:56]
B
It sounds really powerful.
- [09:58]
C
Yeah.
- [09:58]
B
Like an interesting story. Okay, great. Well, thanks to both of you for sharing a little bit about yourselves and your interests. And now we're going to get into the heart of our interview. So I want to start by having each of you tell us a little bit about how you got here, because you kind of have different paths into the roles that you're in now. So, Elizabeth, we'll start with you. You came into local government a little bit later in your career after a career in nonprofit and housing work. So can you talk us through that journey and what drew you into the local government space?
- [10:31]
C
Yeah, thanks. I, when I was in school, really wanted to focus on human rights and service, local community work to try to improve the lives of people in community. I really was interested in trying to plant myself in a community, believing that if you're going to put effort in and try to make things better for anyone, then you should be prepared to stay and really commit to that work. And so I landed in Rocastle County, Kentucky, and from my hometown in western Michigan, and was doing some economic development work, social justice work in Kentucky and in the central Appalachian region, and then happened to move to a community where the US army had just announced recently that it was going to incinerate the national stockpile of chemical weapons. And it turned out they were chemical weapons in the military base near where I was living. And so a local community organization had sprung up as they had across the US and said, that doesn't sound like a good idea. We don't want weapons here, chemical weapons here, but we also don't want them burned in a manner that would release these toxics into the environment. So that really set me on the path of local organizing in the areas of military toxics, working on issues like incineration, pollution, the wide range of environmental health and justice issues that affect us all, whether we're aware of it or not, and most specifically working to connect people who are living really on the front lines of environmental health and justice challenges and struggles and fights, and groups at the national and even international level who are also trying to address policies and support change so we have a planet where we all can live and live healthy. And then happened to move to Colorado in 2014 and took that work with
- [12:48]
A
me
- [12:51]
C
and just had a hard pivot, decided I wanted to change things up a bit, focus on development and grant making, like just that part of of nonprofit work, and ended up applying for a position with the city of Boulder for a new role to manage a Health Equity Fund grant program. And so that's how I came to be in Boulder and working with government instead of kind of working from the
- [13:21]
B
outside of government story thank you for sharing your story. I love your very just calm the introduction of the hard pivot, which I'm sure was a little harder than you're describing, but I think will be very relatable to our audience. I think a lot of people have moments like that in their story. So I'm glad you found your way into local government and we're going to talk more in our conversation about some of the really cool work that you're doing in your somewhat unique role in the city government. So Jamie, what about you? Tell us about your career path and how you got into your role at
- [13:56]
A
AID Kit yeah, thank you Lauren and Elizabeth. First, what an incredible and cool career you've had and it's very exciting to see your leadership that you brought to Boulder so far. But I would say a similar thread. My career path has been a bit winding, but the through line for me has always been service and how to help communities in some way, shape or form. So have done that in a variety of roles from state and federal roles to both public and private sector. And my career started in the Peace Corps where I served in a rural impoverished community in northern Peru. And there that experience really shaped how I thought about public service. I think I came in with some naiveness of that maybe we come in and do it for them and quickly learned that is not the way at all. And really the best programs are built with community, which I know many of the listeners know that and just really learned the ins and outs of being there for three years with community and upon coming back to the US I moved out to Colorado just a couple years after you Elizabeth, in 2016 to work for the State of Colorado's Office of Economic Development and International Trade where I manage a variety of roles focused on regional development, from opportunity zone programs to small business support and a lot of things in between. But was kind of a road warrior to get the word out about programs to a lot of rural communities in Colorado. And then I had a pivot to in 2020 during COVID to go the federal route and worked at the U.S. department of Commerce Economic Development Administration helping get ARPA funds out the door. Really working hand in hand with local governments on this huge influx of funding that I think we all experienced and how to access it in a way that worked for their communities. And that led me to the Department of Energy eventually, which also was a large grant making office and really just getting letting people know they had these funds on the table. It was also local government serving, tribal serving and a lot of nonprofits that usually did not work with the Department of Energy. So that was up until last year. And another pivot came my way of was put in the place of what's next. And I was like, okay, maybe I start looking at the private sector, but how can I still find a place that is doing impact and also working with communities? And I was so happy to find Aid Kit where they really do work directly hand in hand with local government, states and and nonprofits. And today in my role I get to do that on helping a variety of direct cash assistance programs get set up and out the door to serve residents. So that's a little bit about my path and excited to dive into the story of Elevate Boulder here today with Elizabeth.
- [16:59]
B
That's great. You know, the whole purpose of GovLove is to introduce the universe to just incredible public servants who are doing great work. And I feel like you all are kind of the poster children for what we're trying to do here. You just have amazing like public service spirits and stories. So great. We're going to talk more about that. Jamie, tell us more about Aid Kit. Like what is this organization? What is the work that you do with local government partners?
- [17:24]
C
Yes.
- [17:25]
A
So Aid Kit is a public benefit corporation. We're very much focused on delivering aid with dignity to communities that need it the most and that can look like a variety of different ways, but to kind of bring it back. We got our start during the COVID 19 pandemic, helping get emergency funds out the door quickly to people in need. Since Then to date, we've partnered with over 240 partners, many of those local governments, distributing more than 400 million across 27 states. And that can be from things like guaranteed income pilots like Elevate Boulder to disaster relief to small business recovery and other things in between.
- [18:03]
C
So.
- [18:03]
A
So really how we actually work with local governments is we are a technology platform. So they come to us with the what of who they want to serve and why, and we help them really get to the how. We come in from the point A, all the way to the Z of really providing the infrastructure that is needed to make a direct cash assistance program come to life. So we help stand up a mobile, friendly application. We provide a support platform, whether for, say, the city of Boulder staff to utilize or for our staff to help. Eligibility verification is huge, to help really verify that, and also fraud mitigation to really help safeguard that these funds are going in to the right place and to the right people and ultimately payments. So we like to say we are the technical backbone. We like to elevate our partners, for lack of better word, that they would always think that, say, the city of Boulder is really running all of it, and we're just on that back end, making the programs feel very simple on the front end to the applicants, even if they're very complex on the background.
- [19:14]
B
Great. Thank you for that explanation. And we're going to hear more about how it worked with an example here. City of Boulder was your partner. So, Elizabeth, tell us about this program. Elevate part Elevate Boulder. How did it come together? What did you set out to do with designing this program?
- [19:30]
C
Yeah, so Elevate Boulder began initially with just some conversations among myself and a handful of other staff here at the city, wondering after the Stockton, California guaranteed income project called SEED launched. I thought, you know, really would be fantastic if we could find a way to not, not just continue the support that the city is already providing to nonprofit organizations and our own programs that get money to people who need it for rent, for food, for health care, for child care, etc. But also just give people money. We. We believe that people are, for the most part, trustworthy and are the best people to know what they need. And there are a whole range of expenses that we face as individuals and certainly as families that can't be met through benefits programs. Not everything that we need is a check to the landlord. A lot of it is. Or to the child care provider or the dentist, a lot of it is, but. But certainly not everything. And direct this direct cash assistance or guaranteed income could help to resolve some of the issues and fill some of the gaps that we see in our community. Boulder is, is really known as being kind of nationally and even internationally as a community that's very healthy and wealthy and that's not untrue. But around 25% of our of our population in the city really struggles to make ends meet. It's a very expensive place to live. Affordability is not only a national buzzword, it's very much a reality here as as much as many other places. And so we, we also felt that Elevate a, a guaranteed income program now known as Elevate Boulder could really help meet that community need. And so it turned out that we had a relationship with Aid Kit some other agencies here in Colorado, including Impact Charitable for those initial Covid projects that were just getting money into people's pockets who might not be eligible for unemployment, might not be eligible for the kind of stimulus checks and other forms of COVID assistance available. And then it wasn't until the American Rescue Plan act or ARPA where we could use funds to support direct cash assistance. So Boulder, along with many other municipalities and some states and counties across the country realized that was our moment to really pilot what a guaranteed income project could look like. So we set it up to provide $500 to 200 low income community members here in Boulder for two years. And there were some very basic eligibility criteria. You had to be a resident of the city you needed, because it's ARPA fund, you need to say, yes, I'm Covid impacted. Which of course everyone was. You had to be over 18 years old and you, you had to be within 30 to 60% of the area median income for the city, Boulder and Boulder County. So the project launched and we released applications in fall 2024 and the first. Nope, sorry, 2023. The first payments began going out in January 2024 and ended on December 31, 2025.
- [23:22]
B
Okay. We are going to talk more about what you have learned through this program, but want to make sure I understand you started this through in a pilot phase. You've concluded your pilot phase. What's the current status of your program?
- [23:35]
C
Current status of the program in this post pilot phase is we are working to raise some funds from the private sector to hopefully match a contribution from the city in order to provide another cohort. The next plan will be or the the next step plan is to launch another cohort hopefully later this year that would provide the same level of guaranteed income for the same amount of time. $500 per month for two years to 100 more community members in Boulder.
- [24:10]
B
Okay. And tell us about your evaluation process through the pilot. What kinds of data were you collecting and what outcomes are. Are you most proud of?
- [24:22]
C
Yeah. So we had set up the project with the help of community members, nonprofit partners, people who are really familiar with and have that direct, lived experience of living in Boulder with low income. And some of the outcomes that we set out for this project are to really immediately provide some relief in terms of basic needs, affordability. But longer term, we also wanted to really have this project help create a bridge for people who are trying to achieve or at least significantly advance toward financial stability. To not be in that situation where you literally laying awake at night most nights, trying to figure out where the next rent check is coming from, on the edge perhaps of eviction or at least housing instability or insecurity, not sure if your family's going to have enough to eat. But get to a place where you're just generally doing better and probably less reliant on those emergency services that we have available in the city. And we also were hoping to have some pretty significant impact on folks, mental health and physical health. Other pilots have shown that to be the case. And I think we would all say that's pretty, pretty intuitive. If you're not worrying so much about whether you're going to be able to feed yourself and your family and keep a roof over your head, it's quite likely that your mental health and your outlook will substantially change. So those were some of the outcomes that we wanted. We also had set up the project outcomes to focus on dignity and trust. So it's not just about the actual individual results kind of intangible or financial sense, but we also wanted people, even if they weren't selected by lottery for the project, to feel as though they had a dignified experience. Did we create a process in the system that really was easy for people to engage with? Was it transparent? Was it honoring? Right. Kind of those individuals wherever they happen to be and kind of wherever their background and situation, and then trust. I know we'll talk about that, I think, a little bit later, so I'll let that go for now. We evaluated the project in two ways. One, we engaged with an evaluation consultant on the institute to do some real. What I would say is more formal evaluation. We did not have a control group, but we did engage whatever participants wanted to in a survey process. We held focus groups, and Omni did a fantastic job kind of creating milestones throughout the project to See how our participants doing at the eight month, the 20 month, and then moving ahead, I should say at the baseline, sorry, so before they started receiving funds, and then at the eight month mark, and then that's 20 month mark. We also engage participants in storytelling because it turns out that not all of our experiences can really best be relayed by numbers on a chart. We are dynamic human beings with a lot of different kinds of experiences and a lot of different ways to express that. We had a whole storytelling project that took place over summer 2025 and through the fall where participants could choose to share their experience and what it meant for them through photography, narrative performance, through writing and video storytelling. We had a podcast series. So it was really between those two kind of evaluation methods, a very kind of broad and deep look at how guaranteed income can really transform the lives of people in a community and perhaps transform the community as a whole.
- [28:31]
B
I want to respect the privacy of the people involved, but are there any of those stories that really stuck with you that you might be able to share with us?
- [28:41]
C
Absolutely. I'll try to be brief and then of course would encourage anyone who's listening to check out the stories available on the project webpage. One that gets many people in the gut, especially people who are parents, is the story from a participant that one of the first things they were able to do for their, their family is provide a birthday party for their 10 year old. Never had a birthday party before. Parents over and over again shared. And I remember this and I'm sure other people listening do as well. From our own lives, you just have to say no a lot to your kids because you just can't afford what they would like to do. Even the things that many of us might take for granted now. And so the parent who is able to say yes, this year, you can have some friends over. Yes, we're going to have a cake. Yes, we're not, you know, talking anything fancy necessarily, but yes, we're going to do this thing, the power of being able to say yes to your kids. Yes, we're gonna go to the bouncy castle in the next town over and yes, you can have something to eat here as well. Yes, we're going to have our family over and celebrate a Christmas meal, whereas we don't think we would have been able to do that previously. Yes, we're going to take a weekend vacation. We're going to go somewhere, we're going to have some joy, right, in addition to making sure we're fed and housed. So those are the Stories I think really are very telling in that they remind all of us that for people who are experiencing low income, your identity is not only that of somebody as an individual or family that's low income. Like you have all of the joys and, and depths and kind of peaks and valleys of life, things come at you. But this is a way to empower and enable people to, to not only take care of their basic needs, but be a part of this community and think ahead and dream and kind of have those aspirations that you just don't even have time to think about if you're constantly worrying about what's going to happen the next day.
- [31:13]
B
Thank you, Elizabeth. That's really powerful. Like, I did literally get the chills when you were talking about that birthday party. And I do want to go back to what you mentioned earlier, that one of the stated goals of this program was about building stronger trust in your community. And I just want to give you the opportunity to elaborate on what that meant with this program because trust is something we talk about a lot in local government and on govla. Like how do you build that public trust? How do we do community engagement? And I think you have a really interesting take on it with this program. So can you just explain more about how you build trust?
- [31:50]
C
Yeah, I think most of us, if not all of us working in government are well aware that the trust level is bottoming out, if it hasn't already. And that's happening at all levels of government. We can at the local level, of course, control what happens at state level, federal level. However, we can continue to work to make sure that we're giving the trust to where we can to community in the hopes that that will come back around in receiving some trust from our community. That cycle is hard won. Right. And we have to show we deserve it. So this kind of project we hoped again by providing a dignified experience and one that we really were saying, we see you, we trust you, we value you as a part of this community. We are literally investing in you and believe that again that you know best how to take care of your, your needs and that of your family. And if you're able to do that, we, we hope you'll stay and we hope you'll be a value, remain a valued member of this community and maybe trust a little bit more that the city does see you and respect you. And what we hear from participants is that did have that impact participants and saying that they wouldn't have thought, maybe they were a little skeptical at the beginning that this project was even real. Like, are you serious? I know I got this letter or this email saying I was selected for this program, but is this even real to getting to a point where like, yeah, now I'm seeing money coming in. Here's the way that I've been able to care for myself and my family. And again, not just for basic needs, but continuation of education, job training. We've had some participants share they have changed their career path to go into service because they were touched by this program. People who invested in their children in a way that will pay off years and years and years to come, and that they do trust the government and our community just a little bit more, that we have the ability to hold each other in a different way.
- [34:11]
B
Yeah. It's really special. Thank you. Jamie, I want to turn back to you to talk a little bit more about the nuts and bolts of how this program works. You know, you work with local government partners across many of these different programs. So what makes a direct cash assistance program work well operationally and where do things tend to go wrong? You know, what kind of advice do you have for people who might be looking at a program like this? And how can aid kit help?
- [34:41]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So one, I think, Elizabeth, what you shared, I think really does exemplify what a good program does look like. So programs only do work really well if one people can access them and trust them, which elevate Boulder is an exceptional example of. I like to think about it that every step in the process, from outreach to letting people know about this program to the actual application question, to what languages are being offered to how are we able to communicate with them? Is that email, is that text messages? Or do we have. With Boulder, there were CBO partners on the ground also offering support. So every step in that whole process can either be a barrier to make it harder on the applicant or resident, or it can be an opportunity to really help open up more accessibility and also trust. Right. I think that trust can be broken very quickly. So where things tend to go wrong is when that delivery breaks down. I know I've experienced this when I'm trying to apply for something. It could get too complicated or burdensome. I might need to go find all these forms and I don't know where they are. Payments may be delayed. And I'm like, is this even real? And then on the back end as well, on the local government side are the safeguards there as well that are strong to make sure we are confident that this is going to eligible, correct people. So that's when we see when delivery is broken down. And on the flip side, it is pretty simple and clear. It is the flip side of that, of really making simple mobile first applications that are really designed from that human centered approach. As Elizabeth mentioned, there were voices at the table helping us develop this application. And that's how most of our programs are. We don't develop it in a silo without testing it on somebody that would actually be utilizing this program and getting that feedback back before it goes live. So that's a very critical part of our step. And also making sure that there's multilingual access. And very just like our payment methods are, they are quick and they are predictable. So they know when on a guaranteed income project when they may be say, getting that direct deposit each month as well. We've seen this in various different ways. Many of our programs serve vulnerable populations and it might be, say, rethinking what identity verification looks like. If somebody does not, say, have an actual id, they can take a photo of and apply via our mobile application, they might have to go in person with one of the partners to help assist them and do that in person verification. Or if we're serving unhoused individuals, we might, we'll ask them that at the forefront. So we're not asking them where their address is, but we're potentially showing them a map and having them ping where they're usually located and maybe also listing community organizations they may use as a resource as well. So thinking it from all angles of really, who are we serving, are all these questions actually accessible? And are we creating a system that makes them feel seen, which then ultimately builds that trust as well? So it definitely cannot be done alone. Elevate Boulder had several, several partners. Aid Kit was just the technical backbone. And it's truly from that kind of thinking, the full scope of A to Z of really is this easy for them? And then at the same time, we like to make it easy as well for our government partners so that they can go in, look at the data, look at maybe who has this reached, who has this not reached, and maybe how can we also adjust in real time by looking at that data as well.
- [38:38]
B
You are both painting really just a beautiful picture of what happens when you design a program that is based on need and it's grounded in dignity. And you are focused on trust and you are listening to people and seeing people like this all sounds incredible. And yet one of the reasons I wanted to have you all on as guests and have this conversation is just maybe a hint of challenge. I think there are some who would question, is this really the role of government? Is this the role of local government? A program like this, I think would be more commonly seen from a county government that has more of a social service angle than city governments historically do. So, Elizabeth, I'll just ask you, can you talk about how your city made the case internally and politically to invest in Elevate Boulder?
- [39:35]
C
Yeah, thanks for that question. It is tricky and I'll say that
- [39:41]
B
I
- [39:44]
C
that many times in my kind of observation and experience. Governments tend to be pretty good at stepping in to intervene after people are experiencing crisis. Some might say that we're not doing a great job at that overall. But. But I think there's a lot of work in that area. And the more kind of upstream we go, the more questions about, well, is I don't know about that. And I'm very fortunate and I think our community is very fortunate that the city has had a commitment to supporting nonprofit organizations and programs and having our own programs that really focus on trying to meet people where they are and to prevent harm in crisis before it exists. And these guaranteed income programs really are about as upstream as we can go. And I hope that more people are getting more comfortable with that perspective, thinking about financial stability, mental health, et cetera, etc. We have a lot of programs, including from our fantastic nonprofit partners, where we're focusing on addressing a need of mental health. For example. Right. There's a lot of stress and anxiety going around. A lot of people struggling with really, really serious needs, and not all of them can be resolved. Right. By providing a guaranteed income. That's would never say that. And looking at the impact not only on food security, housing security, but also mental health, the number of people through Elevate Boulder who are experiencing psychological distress, who are now not experiencing psychological distress because of the project, and in fact have improved their mental health was really quite significant. We have people who are eating. Everyone in the family is eating. They're more consistently eating. They're less worried about being evicted the next month. These are problems that we're trying to solve as government agencies every day of every year. And if we can prevent some more of these problems, prevent people from experiencing the crisis earlier, we're all winning. And I think it just challenges us as government staff and government leaders to think about why that still feels so risky or why that feels like a line that we somehow can't cross. Who deserves? Are we sure that everybody deserves? Are we still kind of really grappling with maybe only some people deserve this kind of support. So I think where we are as a city, what. What led to the pilot being able to launch was, number one, just really having this source of federal funds that we could test some new ideas, or maybe they're not so new actually, but test and see what it would look like here in Boulder and have some confidence in the results Initially. I think our city leaders and council members at the time asked really good questions about what the implications might be, what outcomes we were trying to achieve, and what the data showed already as to whether or not we may be able to achieve those outcomes. And now it's a little bit of a different question. Right. We have to see if we have the resources, both not just from the city, but also from private sources and individuals, foundations, companies, et cetera, to support this project moving forward. And the fact that we've hit on budget hard times is not helping the conversation, but I believe it's the right conversation for every government to have. Are there ways that we can streamline a process, make it more effective and efficient, lean into trust and dignity, and see if there aren't some different ways we can continue to support. Support our communities even better? Yeah, that's great.
- [44:17]
B
You know, I'd ask both of you to weigh in on this for government officials who might be listening and having a lot of curiosity around this and thinking maybe this is something we'd want to do in our community. What. What advice do you have? What do you think is the most important thing to get right before you launch a program like this? Where should people start?
- [44:40]
C
You want to go, Jamie?
- [44:42]
A
Sure. I'll. I'll hop on in and to. Yeah, kind of expand on what you were saying, Elizabeth? I feel like one. The biggest barrier right now that we keep hearing is funding. So that usually is the first step is getting really clear on what that looks like. Once you have that in your, like, at go time, really thinking about what are those outcomes that you want at the end of it for both the residents you'll be serving and then for yourself as the local government. I think Elizabeth painted that picture very beautifully for Boulder of not only do we want to support and lift these people up through the program, but also we want increased mental health and social health. So what other outcomes can we get out of a program? Whether it's guaranteed income or potential disaster response, housing instability programs, these programs could take a lot of different shapes and forms. So getting really clear on those outcomes at the forefront then allows that design to really anchor in it, I would say, across the board, from the actual programmatic delivery to how are we reaching out to people, how are we marketing this and everything in between as well. But Elizabeth, curious your thoughts?
- [45:54]
C
I would agree with all of that. I think just being clear on why you're doing this and who it's for, for being really realistic about what kinds of outcomes you could achieve now, everybody's situation is different. Everybody's situation is different. And so what might be a perfectly reasonable and wonderful transformative outcome for one family or individual might mean just kind of the barely making it reality for another. You just don't know. None of us know what life is going to throw at us next. And so being really realistic about those outcomes and I think also not thinking about guaranteed income as something that should be replacing other forms of assistance, but rather stepping in and helping fill another gap for the city. Guaranteed income is a hope element in our family homelessness prevention strategy, which we just updated last year. Really glad about that because again, we've seen that this can keep families more stable so they're less at risk of losing housing in the first place. Do we have other supports available? Yes. But this can be an additional gap. So thinking about where those gaps are in your community and how this might be a fit, that's great.
- [47:24]
B
Is there anything else that either of you want to share with our listeners before we wrap up?
- [47:31]
A
I would just like to encourage that if people are thinking about doing this, there is a path forward. There's models out there like Elevate Boulder that exist and the lessons learned, the best practices are there as mold. So if you're thinking about it, thinking about the partners, it is doable. And at AID Kit, we see ourselves truly as a partner working alongside that work to really like help elevate the work of local governments that we're so honored to do.
- [48:00]
C
I would agree with that. AID Kit's been a great partner just for government, folks. When you're looking for partners, be really firm in your values. You don't have to set them aside in order to engage with a consultant or a technology provider. If you keep those values front and center and set that expectation, it should really help make sure again, those dynamics of dignity trust are really centered. And then, yeah, organizations and networks like Mears for a guaranteed income, which is now mears, and in counties for a guaranteed income. Stanford Basic Income Lab, Income Movement Economic Security Project. There are so many fantastic national networks and data sets of how guaranteed income has been applied to and benefiting all cities from all over the country to large cities, small cities, urban, rural, suburban for a wide range of community populations. So please check it out, be curious and feel free to reach out to us if you want to chat.
- [49:13]
B
Thank you for your willingness to be available to folks and for sharing some of those resources and for reminding us to stay true to our values. I think that's a great place to leave it for our conversation. I want to thank both of you so much for joining the Govla podcast. Elizabeth, I have one final question for you. If you could be the Gov Love dj, what song would you pick as our exit music for this episode?
- [49:37]
C
I love this question. I'm going to go rogue and say my second recommendation would be Hole in the Bucket by Katie Curtis. Katie with a C. Curtis with a C. But my number one, I'm going to just give a shout out to some some friends from the town where I used to live in Kentucky, Berea, Kentucky. Shout out to Zoe Speaks, Mitch Barrett and Carla Gover for their song Money's Our God, which is something I think everyone can relate to, not just our low income folks, but how hard it is to live in this in this world and really struggle to figure out how we're going to provide for families. It's a sweet little folk song and encourage everyone to check it out.
- [50:24]
B
Okay, I'm definitely going to thank you for that recommendation. Well, this ends our episode for today. Thank you so much to both of our guests, Jamie Hackbarth from Aid Kit and Elizabeth Crow from the city of Boulder, Colorado, and to our audience. Thank you for listening. You can reach us@elgl.org govlove or on social media @govlove podcast this has been Govlab, a podcast about local government.
- [50:50]
C
I want a new religion
- [50:54]
B
Daycare, car
- [50:56]
C
pool, traffic jam, Daddy's working late again
- [51:06]
B
Our kids are raised by someone else
- [51:11]
C
I'd rather rather be with them myself say money's our God makes our decision but if money's our God, I want a new religion.