A Community Blueprint for Guaranteed Income
This report presents the findings of a countywide community engagement effort that laid the groundwork for a local guaranteed income pilot. As a member of the county workgroup, I helped shape this community-informed process, which gathered input from over 500 residents through listening sessions, focus groups, and surveys. The report reveals not only the urgent economic challenges facing Contra Costa residents, but also their clear, collective support for guaranteed income as a tool to restore financial security, agency, and well-being. Grounded in lived experience and policy insight, this work offers a replicable model for designing economic interventions that center dignity, trust, and systemic change.
A Community-Driven Guaranteed Income Pilot
This evaluation report captures the bold, resident-led design and implementation of the CoCo Go BIG guaranteed income pilot in Antioch, California. Created by Comment Studio members—including residents who shaped and received the support—this six-month pilot provided $400/month to adults and $200/month to transitional-age foster youth. The results? Participants reported better financial stability, reduced stress, stronger social connections, and increased agency over their futures. As the program’s designer and manager, I helped facilitate a truly community-driven process—from design to advocacy—proving what’s possible when those closest to the problem lead the solution.
Year 1: Highlights of Mobility LABs Nationwide
This snapshot captures the first year of implementation across nine communities in the Robin Hood Mobility LABs initiative—a national, community-driven effort to tackle poverty through solutions rooted in local leadership, partnership, and lived experience. As part of the East Contra Costa site, I helped design and implement programs that combined direct cash assistance, leadership coaching, and policy engagement. This infographic offers a high-level view of early outcomes, including increased resident power and autonomy, strengthened cross-sector partnerships, and progress in education, employment, and systems change. It reflects a bold reimagining of what’s possible when communities lead their own path out of poverty.
Year 1: Building Power Through Community-Driven Design
This comprehensive report documents the first year of implementation for the Robin Hood Foundation’s Mobility LABs initiative—a bold, multi-site effort to redefine economic mobility through community-led strategies. Across nine diverse sites, residents worked alongside anchor organizations to launch programs that went beyond economic stability, prioritizing power, autonomy, and belonging. As a lead contributor in the East Contra Costa site, I helped develop approaches that integrated direct cash assistance, leadership development, and systems change advocacy. This report lays the groundwork for how lived experience, when placed at the center, can transform not only individual outcomes—but entire systems.
Year 2: From Community Vision to Structural Change
This executive summary captures the deepening impact of the Mobility LABs initiative in its second year, as nine communities—including East Contra Costa—moved from relationship-building to systems-shifting action. Backed by Robin Hood and national funders, the work advanced across three dimensions of economic mobility: financial stability, power and autonomy, and a sense of belonging. In East Contra Costa, I supported this evolution by co-designing programs and building resident leadership pathways. The report also highlights emerging successes in narrative and policy change, signaling a growing capacity among community members to not just participate—but lead. This is what transformation looks like when the people most affected by poverty drive the solutions.
Year 2: Mobility LABs and the Rise of Resident Power
This detailed report chronicles the second year of the Mobility LABs initiative—a national, community-led strategy to redefine economic mobility through trust, equity, and action. As partnerships matured, communities moved from piloting programs to influencing local policy, shifting public narratives, and embedding resident leadership into every phase of the work. In East Contra Costa, I played a key role in designing and managing efforts that paired guaranteed income with leadership training, resulting in real systems change. This report is a roadmap for how long-term, community-driven investment builds not just programs, but power.
Year 3: A Blueprint for Community-Led Systems Change
This final report marks the culmination of a bold, three-year national initiative to reimagine mobility from poverty—led by communities, not imposed on them. Across nine sites, including East Contra Costa, Mobility LABs demonstrated what becomes possible when residents are trusted with both resources and decision-making power. In my role as program manager, I helped steward the evolution from pilot to policy—shaping guaranteed income programs, resident-led governance, and systems-level advocacy. This report offers key lessons for funders, policymakers, and practitioners ready to shift from charity to structural change by centering lived experience in every step of the process.
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