Making Federal Recovery Count: Big Ideas for Equitable, Impactful State & Local Investments
Image Credit: Zach Searcy
By: Julia Reed, Jenny Six, and Avery (Kirsten Avery)
Thanks to the recently-passed American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), significant funding is on its way to states, counties, cities, and school districts across the country. These dollars will accelerate critical recovery work like continuing vaccination efforts, reopening schools, reactivating community spaces, and more.
ARPA funding is arriving at a critical time. Even as vaccines bring promise that our public health emergency may be waning, we’re only at the beginning of confronting the many challenges of the recovery: reactivating our neighborhood and downtown spaces, helping millions of people reconnect with the workforce, helping people find and stay in safe and healthy homes, and supporting young people in their transition from Zoom school to their next chapter.
At Kinetic West, we are paying especially close attention to recovery funding that could support learners, educators, workers, and those experiencing homelessness -- especially BIPOC individuals who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
Three overarching priorities that should drive recovery funding choices
There are going to be a lot of pressures to get ARPA funds out the door quickly. To ensure these investments are impactful and equitable, states, counties, and cities should use three overarching priorities to direct recovery funding:
Work with community to get funds directly to people and communities who need it;
Focus on critical transition points, and;
Elevate opportunities that benefit the community on multiple fronts
Work with community to get funds directly to people and communities who need it
We have lived through a tough year that crystallized crises in existence long before 2020 or COVID-19. Systemic racism and other forms of inequity in this country’s institutions and processes are not new, but they have been brought into even clearer perspective by the pandemic. These problems are often perpetuated by gatekeepers and gatekeeping processes that put barriers between resources and those who need them. Too often we invest in institutions rather than directly in people, hoping that benefits will trickle down.
That’s why we think recovery investments should focus on opportunities that get funds directly and quickly to those who the funding is intended to serve. ARPA already directs some dollars to individuals through tools like stimulus checks, the increased child tax credit, and rental assistance. Institutions should further this impact by channeling portions of their own recovery funding directly to those they serve, and particularly to BIPOC communities and BIPOC-led organizations. This should be supported by processes that ensure communities have a strong voice in recovery fund decision-making.
Focus on critical transition points, like learners moving from high school to postsecondary pathways or families facing eviction and homelessness
Our social systems need work at every level, but there are some critical transition points where individuals fall between or outside system supports. Getting funding directly to learners, those experiencing homelessness, and other community members ahead of these critical transition points will provide direct support ahead of high-risk moments.
Elevate opportunities that benefit communities on multiple fronts
Recovery spending should not only support program recipients, but also grow capacity within the community as a whole. This might look like learning loss mitigation efforts that support elementary school learners as the primary participants, while high school learners serve as peer mentors and also benefit from the program by getting paid and building early work experience. It could also look like investing in paid work-based learning opportunities at small local businesses, providing job opportunities and wages to workers and expanding the capacity for small businesses to support thriving, local communities.
These opportunities help recovery dollars go farther, supporting multiple subsets of the community: younger and older learners, workforce and small businesses, those in need of housing, and those who are in a position to provide related resources and services.
Based on these priorities, we think all states, counties, and cities should pursue three big ideas for recovery spending
Provide stipends directly to learners for internships and job training programs
Provide a “youth stimulus” for workers ages 16-24: Young workers have been disproportionately impacted during the pandemic. Young people lost not only jobs, but had reduced access to work-based learning and training programs that could have helped them launch their careers. We propose providing young people with $1,500 stipends for securing an internship or participating in a job training program, and giving community nonprofits, small businesses, and/or women and minority owned business enterprises $500 per student they help place in internships or training. This could also expand opportunities for young people to intern at smaller businesses in their own communities, not just the large corporations that can typically afford to pay intern wages.
Provide stipends to learners and educators in the childcare career pathway: As we work toward an equitable recovery, the availability of affordable, high-quality childcare is going to be a major barrier for everyone -- but especially for women of color -- in returning to work. Childcare providers have been hit hard during the pandemic and, even before COVID-19, we didn’t have enough childcare slots to meet demand in Washington. Providing stipends to learners and educators in the childcare career pathway helps rebuild childcare provider options for families, and also supports continuing to bring providers into that industry.
Support massive expansion of virtual and hybrid paid internships through employer training and virtual internship hubs
Over the summer, learners fall into a gap in between education systems, where no one entity is really responsible for their learning and development. This is especially true for high school students, who can benefit from summer internships and work-based learning opportunities to build skills and explore career opportunities that prepare them to pursue their career pathway of choice. Even before COVID-19. transportation challenges and the perception that interns under age 18 are both extremely time intensive to manage and create additional workplace liability were significant barriers that high school interns have to overcome in securing a summer internship or training opportunity.
We propose using ARPA funds to massively expand summer internship opportunities by providing “virtual internship hubs” — community-based centers where high school students can complete a virtual internship in a cohort of their peers. These could be located at schools, libraries, or hosted by community-based partners like nonprofits, museums, industry associations, or community colleges. As part of partnering with a virtual intern hub, employers would receive coaching on how to create and run high-quality virtual internship programs.
Each hub provides computers and internet access, as well as on-site staff support for troubleshooting questions and helping students stay on task. Students can share project work with other peers in the hub, creating social connections and collaborative work. This would put summer internships within reach of many more high school students, and give them an opportunity to gain paid, practical work experience in a supported, social setting, even if they cannot physically travel to a job site.
Develop service corps programs to support workforce and civic recovery
Developing service corps programs would allow unemployed and underemployed individuals to play a central role in economic and civic recovery. This could look like Hope Corps, a proposed program to employ artists and hospitality workers in supporting community needs during the recovery. Learn more about Hope Corps, an example of what a service corps program could look like.
Coming Next: How states, cities, and counties can create a more participatory and equitable process for directing recovery funds
We know that decision-makers hope to support a speedy and equitable recovery. But that’s just it — the process for spending ARPA funding must be timely and equitable — meaning it has to be investing in a recovery that centers the communities of color that have been the most heavily impacted by the pandemic. To do that, you have to give those communities a real, meaningful, and decisive voice in how recovery funds are spent.
We should prioritize recovery spending that empowers these communities to decide for themselves how funds are spent, and lifts up organizations already based in and doing the work in BIPOC communities. This isn’t about telling BIPOC communities what’s best for them, it’s about listening to their needs, connecting them with resources, and getting out of their way.
Our next blog post we’ll take a deeper dive into strategies that cities, counties, and states can use to support those investments.