The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed the public discourse around social care equity and access. Laying bare disparities between low income communities of color and their whiter, wealthier counterparts, it also underscored how social and cultural understanding—or lack thereof—can determine the level of trust between communities and healthcare providers. In Los Angeles and San Francisco, for example, the need for “credible messengers” to share COVID-19 information prompted government and healthcare agencies to lean on community-informed ambassadors to reach those most at-risk. 

The pandemic affirmed what community leaders have known for decades—the messenger is as crucial as the message itself. 

Today’s social and economic landscape makes this message ever more urgent. Increasing numbers of people struggling with unemployment, housing insecurity, and mental health conditions need not just a stronger social care system, but a more credible system, with community-informed workers at the frontlines.

We are excited to see new policy and budget initiatives, like CalAIM and increased Medi-Cal spending, emerge during this recovery phase. The support and direction they provide for equitable and person-centered care are much needed for our California communities. At the same time, we are concerned that qualities central to reaching at-risk individuals and families—lived experience and community ties—are not yet central to how social care policy evolves.

As a whole, CalAIM recognizes social work and community support as central to comprehensive care. Echoing this message, the Washington Post has described social workers as the “unsung heroes of the pandemic” and fundamental to the care landscape: 

“Within our hospitals, they evaluate the needs of families, enroll patients in public assistance programs and address food-insecurity and transportation challenges. Social workers are the glue to connect patients and families with essential services, the grease that lubricates key bureaucratic processes we and our loved ones depend on in our hours of need.”

However, a recent Cal Matters report on the CalAIM Behavioral Health Payment Reform Initiative raises concerns that some of CalAIM’s reforms, including higher payments for providers with advanced degrees, value professional credentials over lived experience and community knowledge. Despite evidence that lived experience increases the efficacy and engagement of behavioral health services, this CalAIM initiative overlooks its value and, therefore, comes with barriers to equity attached.

We share this concern and worry about any vision for social care that does not uplift the experience and knowledge of people who have used safety net resources. In One Degree’s field—social care technology—services are increasingly being delivered by highly funded, for-profit corporations. Unfortunately, when profit margins and ROI drive how such technology develops, the needs and expertise of communities are often devalued.

This is where One Degree stands out. As a nonprofit, we remain beholden to the public good. More importantly, our Community Outreach & Engagement team is staffed by people who have used public services and are local to the regions they serve. Having directly helped 1,400 community members navigate One Degree resources, they continually demonstrate that frontline staff with lived experience are necessary to building dignified communities of care. For many of our community members, our approach offers the relief of feeling seen and supported by those who understand the journey. 

To implement our values more fully, we are designing a new volunteer initiative to recruit, train and certify Community Outreach & Resource Navigators—with lived experience—to connect their communities to resources. Integrating leadership development with resource navigation training, the initiative aims to elevate the voices, resilience and power of low income communities. For us, this is a necessary next step towards bridging the gap between the social care system and the diverse communities it serves.

The messenger is as crucial as the message itself. 

As social care policies and tech infrastructure develop, we need more and more organizations advocating for what we know: that community experts can reach those that others can’t. If we rally behind this truth, the unsung hero of social care—lived experience—will begin to receive the valuation our communities deserve.

By Steve “Spike” Spiker, Chief of Programs & Technology.

We’ve all heard the adage that it takes a village to raise a child. Perhaps less well known is that it sometimes takes a financial resilience coach to improve the health of children and their families. For the past two years, One Degree has been supporting an innovative community health intervention led by the Medical-Financial Partnership (MFP) team at UCLA Harbor-UCLA Primary Care Pediatrics, Prenatal, and Family Medicine Clinics and the Olive View-UCLA Primary Care Pediatrics Clinic. Focused on addressing the complex social and financial situations that low-income families struggle through daily, this novel initiative is staffing clinics with financial resilience coaches. One Degree is proud to be part of these creative approaches to caring for people and improving the health and well being of communities.

Poverty, according to the Council on Community Pediatrics, is a significant driver of adverse health outcomes for children and hinders access to essential healthcare. Underscoring the importance of early childhood interventions, the Council suggests that such interventions can yield “a high rate of return in both human and financial terms.” Studies by the RAND Corporation provide a concrete understanding of these returns, documenting that early childhood interventions can yield a return on investment ranging from $1.80 to $17 for every dollar spent. 

Yet, despite this evidence, the reality for many families remains far from ideal. Consider a single mother working two jobs and relying on public transportation to support her family. She is likely to face significant barriers to securing adequate healthcare for her children, unlike a well-off mother with a high-earning spouse and access to private transportation. Even though it is clear  that early access to care reduces healthcare costs and lessens the burden of disease later in life, the working poor continue to face a health and social services landscape laden with obstacles and complexity.

The Medical-Financial Partnership at UCLA is confronting these challenges head-on. By incorporating financial resilience coaches into the clinical environment, the program can address issues beyond health that lead to improved outcomes for the whole family, from improved financial wellbeing to increased rates of immunizations and preventative care visits. A recent NPR article highlights the impact of this innovative approach on Los Angeles families. Dr. Adam Schickendaz, a project lead and advocate for One Degree in clinical settings, articulated this sentiment to NPR: “Poverty drives health outcomes, especially poverty in early childhood… Food insecurity, housing insecurity, transportation issues, utility bills, all have a financial component at their core.” Similarly, Dr. Monique Holguin, another project lead at MFP, shared her insights, “Starting early, in the first few years of life, cements a pathway towards financial security.” She further stated, “Early intervention can break the intergenerational cycles of poverty that we know have long-term, detrimental health impacts on children, and on other family members as well.”

Source: Clinic-Based Financial Coaching and Missed Pediatric Preventive Care: A Randomized Trial (video abstract)

The MFP financial counseling approach supports families in building resilience through financial planning, as well as the identification of strengths, priorities, goals, and action steps aimed to improve economic stability. The MFP at UCLA also aids in connecting families to resources that can help them navigate systems and structures that might otherwise be opaque, enabling them to more easily invest in their children’s future health and wellbeing.

In addition to the support given to families enrolled in the comprehensive financial resilience coaching program, the MFP aids affiliated clinics in developing and maintaining financial and social needs resources. These resources are available to all families served by the clinic, amplifying the benefit across the community. The MFP team also works directly with healthcare team members, sharing knowledge and educating medical trainees on utilizing various tools, resources, and coaching approaches in their patient care practices. This integrated clinic approach, focused on family-centered, community-partnered clinical care improvement, has accelerated healthcare access and led to improved care for an increasing number of families. 

One Degree has played a meaningful role in the MFP initiative. Our initial contribution was the development of an eligibility and screening tool to help financial resilience coaches assess the situation of each family visiting the clinics and determine which public benefits they would likely qualify for. The light-weight and user-friendly tool is also accessible for families to use directly, via mobile device or desktop, and is currently being promoted on UCLA college campuses and clinics. Early evaluation of the tool’s use have shown that 84% of users would recommend it to other families, and nearly all users identified at least one new benefit program they could enroll in.

In addition to the screening tool, One Degree’s community resource platform and closed-loop referral system support the MFP at UCLA. As the leading healthcare providers within ACES-LA, a network dedicated to reducing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES), the UCLA MFP clinics worked with One Degree to develop the referral system as a way for clinics and local nonprofits to make informed, warm referrals to services and resources outside their own organizations. MFP financial resilience coaches receive training on One Degree’s referral system, enabling them to support families beyond the MFP’s financial scope. In the face of poverty, families often require a range of services and benefits that no single organization can provide in its entirety. Therefore, the ability to make informed referrals is critical. It ensures that each client is personally acknowledged and supported by the referred organizations, fostering the trust that is essential to the success of whole care initiatives. 

If your organization is interested in trying a novel approach to serving your community, we would love to hear from you. One Degree is more than just a community resource platform! We enjoy partnering with teams who are experimenting and designing new interventions and ways to serve people more holistically. Even if One Degree is not currently serving your community, we still want to understand your challenges and help turn them into opportunities.

***

For more information about this research, you can explore the following links: 

Clinic-Based Financial Coaching and Missed Pediatric Preventive Care: A Randomized Trial 

Interest in Clinic-Based Financial Services among Low-Income Prenatal Patients and its Association with Health-Related Social Risk Factors

The year was 2005, and two nonprofit foundations, the California HealthCare Foundation and The California Endowment, were poised to change the way individuals accessed health and social services in California. They established the Center to Promote HealthCare Access, an institution dedicated to the development and implementation of technology aimed at providing efficient access to vital services.

One Degree is proud to share the following interview with Samantha Masannat, inaugural AmeriCorps Fellow, who has joined One Degree as part of our partnership with the AmeriCorps Volunteer Infrastructure Project (VIP). Samantha began her journey with us in March 2023 and has focused on the development and expansion of our volunteer program to enhance community engagement across Los Angeles County. With the support of our AmeriCorps Supervising Organization, Foothill Unity Center, Inc., we aim to strengthen One Degree’s capacity to support community members and increase ongoing volunteer recruitment across our organization. As Samantha approaches the end of her 900-hour service term, she continues to engage community members and recruit volunteers to lay the foundation for a high-impact volunteer program.

We recently sat down with Samantha, who generously shared her thoughts about her One Degree journey:

Can you tell us about your background and what led you to join AmeriCorps and One Degree?

After graduating from college with a degree in Public Health in 2021, I began my career in community outreach, assisting low-income individuals primarily by providing them access to free cell phones. But I quickly realized I was seeking something more sustainable and impactful. I knew about AmeriCorps and decided to apply, believing it could be a rewarding experience. I’ve always been drawn to the nonprofit sector as I love working and interacting with people. In a world that often feels disconnected, I wanted to contribute to building stronger communities.

What are your hopes for the Los Angeles community?

My main hope is that we can provide necessary resources to low income individuals in our diverse LA County. I was introduced to Foothill Unity Center by my mother, where I became inspired by volunteer work and the ongoing need for community outreach. During my initial months, I worked alongside other AmeriCorps fellows, assisting low-income residents in Pasadena and Monrovia through food drives and administration duties. I’d like to see well-resourced outreach and assistance programs operating in every community in LA, so that people can find help quickly and services organizations and volunteers are regularly collaborating to close gaps in the safety net.

Can you share a little about your current responsibilities at One Degree?

At the moment, my primary focus is establishing a robust volunteer program in Los Angeles. We are developing volunteer descriptions, a dedicated website for volunteer support, and conducting volunteer outreach. We’ve published volunteer roles on platforms like VolunteerMatch and our One Degree website covering areas such as outreach and social media. My goal is to enhance our team’s capacity, allowing us to reach out to more community organizations and increase our presence in local spaces. We have new volunteer support joining us this month, specifically to attend Los Angeles events and help share resources with our community members. We are excited to expand from there and see what we are able to accomplish together.

What makes volunteering with One Degree an exciting opportunity?

Volunteering with One Degree is very exciting. Here, you’re not just a volunteer—you’re part of a team that cares deeply about helping people and finding new ways to bring resources to those who need it. I’ve been able to sharpen a number of skills, meet incredible people, and contribute to a community-based mission. Their goal of strengthening the social safety net and working day in and out to bring equitable support to all members of our community, it’s very satisfying. I feel proud of this work, knowing that when people learn about resources and find out there is help available, especially when having a hard time, there can be a ripple of positive change in someone’s life.

***

As Samantha continues to serve her term at One Degree, she will concentrate her efforts on fulfilling the Volunteer Development standard, a commitment completed within the first year of service. This involves the creation of a recruitment plan, defining clear roles, formulating retention and recognition strategies, and establishing a productive feedback process for our volunteers. Her work aims to establish a sustainable volunteer program in Los Angeles County that emphasizes utilization, involvement, and effective management. 

We look forward to witnessing the positive impact of Samantha’s volunteer work and encourage anyone interested in contributing to the One Degree mission and community to consider applying for our open volunteer roles. We are immensely grateful for Samantha’s achievements as well as the dedication and efforts of every volunteer who joins us in expanding access to social services in Los Angeles and beyond.

The year was 2005, and two nonprofit foundations, the California HealthCare Foundation and The California Endowment, were poised to change the way individuals accessed health and social services in California. They established the Center to Promote HealthCare Access, an institution dedicated to the development and implementation of technology aimed at providing efficient access to vital services.

Their breakthrough product was the One-e-App (OeA), an innovative web-based system enabling families to connect with an array of publicly funded health and human service programs. It was the first of its kind, trailblazing a path for a future where health coverage, food and nutrition benefits, utility and cash assistance were just a few clicks away. The story of One-e-App is the story of the organization that became Solution Interest Solutions and, today, lives on as One Degree.

Before 2005, most people still went to insurance agents to fill out dozens of pages of applications for their health coverage needs. However, with the birth of the OeA system, a significant shift began that improved resource access for low-income communities. Healthcare administrators within clinics and community-based organizations started to enroll their clients online, changing the landscape of how health insurance screening and eligibility were administered. During this era, legacy systems across industries were being replaced with innovative online platforms, including the shift from paper applications to the online Common App for college admissions and the surge of web-based document storage and sharing solutions such as Dropbox. It was the OeA team that stood at the forefront of this transformation in social services.

The organization’s longest employee and lead engineer, Naresh Ravuri, shared his experience of launching OeA nearly twenty years ago. “Reflecting on my journey with this technology, I feel truly blessed. I joined the team in 2007, although the project started in 2005. From that moment, it was a whirlwind of rapid, intense work striving to scale up OeA to meet the needs of our partners and their communities. Knowing that we were developing something that could potentially help millions of people gave us the drive to keep pushing forward.”

A crucial aspect of the OeA development team’s approach was forging deep, authentic relationships with clients—including San Mateo County, the County of Alameda, Los Angeles Department of Health Services, and Maryland’s Department of Health. This allowed them to more fully comprehend the unique needs of service providers and the communities they served. The team gained particular insight into a significant gap in safety net healthcare programs: the enrollment of individuals who, due to immigration status or other reasons, didn’t qualify for comprehensive Medi-Cal coverage. Partnering closely with their clients, the team quickly developed OeA to help enroll the highest need and poorest community members into much-needed healthcare services. While initially embraced primarily by community-based organizations, OeA usage evolved to encompass county and state health departments. This expansion led to the screening of over 9 million people across four states—California, Arizona, Indiana, and Maryland—and processing upwards of 12 million benefit program applications. 

Beyond facilitating enrollment in safety net programs, OeA served to reduce duplicative administrative procedures. In the past, healthcare administrators who worked directly with communities faced the burdensome task of filling out screening and eligibility paperwork for multiple systems. OeA, however, simplified the process. Functioning as a one-stop system to determine whether individuals qualified for Medi-Cal/Medicaid or other safety net programs, OeA saved providers considerable time and resources.

Ravuri reflected on how OeA enhanced accessibility, stating, “Our application was a breath of fresh air—straightforward and intuitive. With the aid of a helper, individuals could easily fill out the application, which put all the required information at their fingertips. Unlike paper forms that often didn’t capture enough information, our application provided all the necessary details, enabling us to do accurate eligibility calculations and promptly provide the results to our clients. We also introduced kiosks to access the platform in certain areas. The kiosk proved invaluable, especially for those who didn’t have online access at home. They could simply go to a county office and apply using our web-based application, a far cry from the lengthy and daunting paper forms of the past.”

In the early days of OeA, no other nonprofits or commercial vendors were involved in similar work. The team truly pioneered the use of technology to improve access to services and benefits. Aiming to deliver on its mission to promote healthcare access, the team recognized that Web 2.0 technology created an unprecedented opportunity to provide people with faster and easier access to healthcare resources and opportunities. Over the next decade, OeA became a tailored solution, adapting to respond to changing benefits policies and serving different agencies at the local, county, and state levels. Simultaneously, OeA became a blueprint and case study that other companies used to scale up similar technology solutions for benefits access. Today, every state in the country uses a system that, at its core, was modeled off the very first online application for benefits—OeA.

In the last 10 years, few industries have been left untouched by the Web 2.0 revolution, and the benefits and social services field has been no different. Many governmental agencies now have advanced even further to deploy robust, federally and/or state funded enrollment systems, like Covered California, that have reduced the need for OeA, a powerful technology for its time. However, One Degree knows that much more can be done.

Steve Spiker, Chief of Programs and Technology, shared, “Even though electronic applications have now become commonplace, there are still significant barriers to low-income people being able to easily access healthcare benefits and social programs. Despite the digital revolution, the enrollment process can often seem like a black box, where people can be rejected for unknown reasons and spend months or years in appeals or reapplications. The system pressures many people to give up. We are excited that some things have improved over time—for instance, renewals are now just a text message away—but the struggle to access and maintain benefits is still all too real for many. Developing technology and reforming administrative systems that offer universal access, transparency, and referrals to multiple service providers is where we currently see the greatest need.”

Recent changes in California state policy and the Governor’s budget have expanded and strengthened benefits eligibility for low-income families and undocumented individuals. As a result, many original programs that used OeA are being phased out, with families being transferred to MediCal. One Degree applauds this transition, seeing it as a positive step towards ensuring high quality healthcare and reducing administrative burdens. Consequently, One Degree is gradually sunsetting OeA and channeling resources towards what it perceives is the next evolution in social services—integrated eligibility and enrollment for benefits and services through an open resource and referral platform.

One Degree CEO Rey Faustino expressed, “We are immensely grateful to the original team of visionaries who conceived, developed, and launched OeA, as well as the unwavering support of our state, county, and CBO partners throughout the years. OeA has not only facilitated the enrollment of individuals into vital benefits, but it has also had a profound and far-reaching impact on countless lives, creating a ripple effect of positive change. Today, we are redirecting our focus towards addressing the evolving needs of the communities we serve. We are committed to finding innovative, equity-centered solutions and working with community partners to achieve our goals.”

“With One Degree, our priority lies in the next frontier of social service and benefits access,” he continued, “Ensuring that the technology infrastructure actually improves people’s lives. Equally significant is the robust foundation our past work has built, which has allowed us to foster invaluable relationships with key partners and clients, spanning from Los Angeles and San Francisco to the wider reaches of California. Even as we begin to phase-out OeA, the legacy of this pioneering technology system continues to inspire and guide our work.” 

The sunsetting process for OeA begins this month and is projected to run until spring 2024. In reflecting on his experience with OeA, Ravuri shared, “It’s sad to close an application that has served millions of people and fulfilled their needs for so long, but it’s comforting to know that people today can access the benefits they need through many alternatives like Covered California. I’m proud of our work at One Degree and with OeA,” he continued, “where we prioritize people and their needs and build solutions from there. Our impact has been wide. And as we move forward, we continue to leverage our history, our experiences, and our legacy to deliver the technology that people truly need.”

Over the last three years during the COVID-19 pandemic, California increased the benefit amounts for CalFresh, the federal program formerly known as food stamps. Despite skyrocketing inflation and untenable increases in basic food costs, this temporary boost in benefits ended in early April. Now, a $500 million per month reduction in CalFresh benefits is precipitating a hunger crisis in California, affecting 5 million families across the state.

With $82 less in their pockets each month, more and more families are scrambling to figure out how to make ends meet. On the One Degree platform, we observed a 10% increase in searches for food-related resources in March, just before the California benefits increase expired. 

Unfortunately, another benefits cliff is approaching for college students. 

Last year, California expanded CalFresh eligibility to meet a growing need for vital food assistance among students. But this expansion is about to end due to the rollback of the pandemic emergency. College students have until June 10th to be considered for CalFresh benefits under the pandemic-era guidelines, enabling those who are eligible to receive $281 per month for food and groceries. However, if they miss this deadline, their need will be determined under pre-pandemic guidelines that are much narrower and offer much lower benefit amounts.

The biggest challenge is that many eligible students are unaware of the upcoming changes and the June 10th deadline. 

On the bright side, college students across communities are taking outreach into their own hands. They are holding events and raising awareness to find those who need assistance, letting them know that help is available, and supporting the application process. This grassroots effort reminds me of how One Degree began.

In the coming weeks, we will be reaching out to our student community as well, reminding them of the June 10th deadline before time runs out.

At the same time, we want to speak to the need for the future to be different. Every student ought to be able to study without scrambling for food, housing, or healthcare. But to create this future, we need to raise awareness of this issue and create a more comprehensive and coordinated support system.

Let’s join forces to make this vision a reality by increasing our advocacy, raising awareness about food insecurity, and supporting the development of innovative infrastructure that can deliver vital support to people who need it most.

If you’d like to learn more, check out the resources below. We want to hear your thoughts on how One Degree—and our community—can collectively respond to the hunger crisis before us.

Learning Links

Learn more about the California hunger crisis, including the devastating impact that CalFresh benefits reductions are expected to have on college students and families. By sharing these resources, we hope to inspire both advocacy and action.   

• “California is Facing a Hunger Crisis in 2023” (California Food Bank Association)
   
• “A Quick Guide To Changes To College Student Eligibility For CalFresh” (LAist)
   
• “As CalFresh College Eligibility Narrows In June, Students Are Stepping Up To Help Peers Navigate The Enrollment” (LAist)
   
• “Increase of Families in Need After CalFresh Ends Emergency Benefits” (NBC Los Angeles)
   
• “Hunger crisis expected in California as end of COVID-19 emergency prompts cuts to food security programs” (FOX5, KSWB San Diego)
   
• “Food insecurity worsens among low-income Angelenos as emergency boost to CalFresh program expires” (USC News)
   
• “California’s Nutrition Safety Net” (Public Policy Institute of California)

Would you like to share ideas or convene with One Degree about how we can respond to the hunger crisis as a community? If so, we want to hear from you! Send us a message here with the subject “Responding to Hunger.”

Oakland, CA. April 26, 2023 – One Degree is thrilled to announce that Zhen Liu, a Senior Manager at The Bridgespan Group, has joined One Degree’s Board of Directors. Liu boasts an impressive track of shaping social impact initiatives to enhance access to education, public transit, and healthcare. 

“We are incredibly fortunate to welcome Zhen Liu to our team,” expressed One Degree CEO Rey Faustino. “His far-reaching experience collaborating with diverse stakeholders is rooted in a strong commitment to fostering equity and social mobility. This combination equips him with an innate understanding of One Degree’s vision and the expertise to help guide our organization.”

Prior to joining Bridgespan in 2022, Liu collaborated with local governments, nonprofits, corporations, higher education institutions, and multilateral organizations to address various needs, such as strategy, operating model design, and performance improvement. His work has taken him across the US and the world, including stints in China, India, and Southern Africa. He held leadership roles at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Agency and Bain & Company, and had worked with TechnoServe and the City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office. He had served on City Year DC’s associate board for six years before moving to the Bay Area last summer.

Liu shared his enthusiasm for joining the One Degree team, stating, “One Degree is putting life-changing services and benefits within reach of millions of people seeking help. As a child of an immigrant single mother, I understand the importance of getting such help when you most need it. I have been impressed by the One Degree team, not only for the community resource platform they built and are actively enhancing, but also for their passion and commitment to their work.”

“With their current efforts to deepen One Degree’s partnerships within LA County,” Liu continued, “It’s evident that the organization plays a differentiated role in demonstrating how equitable safety net infrastructure can be developed. I’m thrilled to be part of their journey forward.”   

Zhen Liu becomes the sixth member of One Degree’s esteemed board that is helping the organization move closer to its goal of building a social safety net that works for all.

One Degree and ACES-LA Renew Partnership to Strengthen Social Care Referrals in Los Angeles

Los Angeles, CA. April 5, 2023 – One Degree, a tech-for-good nonprofit that builds equity-centered technology, has announced the renewal of its contract with ACES-LA, a network of organizations committed to addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The ongoing partnership enables One Degree to further strengthen a closed-loop referral network, developed with ACES-LA and managed by the Los Angeles Department of Health Services (LADHS), aimed to help at-risk families get the resources they need.

One Degree built the technology infrastructure for the referral network, using its database of 8,000 nonprofit and social service resources in Los Angeles County. Comprising 31 community-based organizations (CBOs) linked to clinical settings within LADHS and the UCLA Olive View and Harbor Clinics, the network streamlines the client referral process from health agencies to CBOs, enabling clients to benefit from a diverse range of support services.

“Our work with ACES-LA highlights the immense importance of a connected referral network, inspiring us to pursue county-wide expansion,” expressed One Degree CEO Rey Faustino. “Especially with the expiration of LA County’s pandemic emergency declaration and related tenant protections, we want to expand the CBO network that can bridge the gaps. We are also raising awareness about 1degree.org, which provides a direct gateway to resources for people who need help.”

To grow the referral network, One Degree is conducting outreach to CBOs across Los Angeles County. “We are committed to developing equity-centered infrastructure and know that listening to the experiences of frontline providers and the communities they serve is critical to getting this right,” Faustino explained.

One Degree also has plans to invest in its data analytics and reporting interface to facilitate better insights into the partnership’s impact. Chief of Programs & Technology Steve Spiker stated, “Enhanced data reporting will empower CBOs to better demonstrate the needs of their communities and attract investment to the programs and services that address these needs most deeply.”

The partnership between One Degree and ACES-LA aligns with CalAIM: California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal, which aims to offer a more equitable, coordinated, and person-centered approach to improving the health and life trajectory of California’s most vulnerable residents.

Media inquiries: press@1degree.org.

Link to the official press release . . .

Did you know that last year, 806,738 people used One Degree to find services and benefits? It’s exciting that we continue to reach so many, and I’m simultaneously humbled by the massive need that our community continues to face.

Every year, I look forward to reflecting on how well we are serving our community. For those of you who have been following our newsletter closely, you know that 2022 was a year of big transitions for our organization. Despite that, our program has continued to grow stronger.

I’m very excited to share our Impact Report 2021-2022, so you can read more about our work—community outreach, building partnerships, and deepening our impact with community-centered technology. I’m so proud of the work of our team, along with the collective efforts and contributions of our partners, supporters, and community members.

Check out some of the results, and send us a note with any feedback, kudos, or questions you have. In dialogue, we can continually improve our efforts to get people the help they need!

In community,
Rey Faustino, CEO

Hoy, Alluma anunció que cambiará su marca a One Degree para que la organización conecte a – personas con recursos críticos de una manera más efectiva. One Degree amplía el acceso a los servicios y beneficios sociales a través de su plataforma de recursos comunitarios (1degree.org) y se enfoca en desarrollar sistemas y herramientas de referencia personalizados para colaboradores  y clientes. Con más de medio millón de usuarios en 2022 y un número creciente de proveedores de servicios que utilizan la plataforma One Degree, este cambio de marca reenfoca a la organización en el camino hacia un mayor impacto en las comunidades necesitadas.

Además de este emocionante cambio de marca, la Junta ha nombrado oficialmente a Rey Faustino como Director Ejecutivo de One Degree. Rey se ha desempeñado como director ejecutivo provisional de Alluma este año para administrar la transición de la organización e implementar un nuevo camino estratégico a seguir para la organización.

El presidente de la junta, James Yocum, declaró: “Rey ha sido un visionario dentro de nuestra industria y un líder dentro de esta organización durante años, y One Degree se beneficiará enormemente de su experiencia continua. Rey asumió el cargo de CEO provisional durante un momento muy desafiante de transiciones internas y externas significativas. Mostró un liderazgo increíble y, a través de la colaboración con el personal, personas de apoyo y amigos, ayudó a la organización a navegar estos cambios con gracia, habilidad y perseverancia”.

Los productos y programas de One Degree continuarán atendiendo  la creciente necesidad de llegar a las personas marginadas y vulnerables a través de un software nuevo e innovador. La misión de la organización sigue siendo la misma: brindar servicios sociales que cambian la vida a millones de personas de bajos ingresos que buscan ayuda todos los días,  desde vivienda hasta atención médica y más. One Degree esta haciendo cambios encima de su larga historia, dirigido por personas que han utilizado y trabajan en servicios sociales.

Rey Faustino, el recién nombrado Director Ejecutivo de One Degree, dijo: “Nuestro increíble y diverso equipo, dedicado a una misión que es fundamental para la vida de tantas personas, continúa trabajando arduamente para aumentar el acceso a los servicios sociales para millones de personas que buscan ayuda todos los días. Aunque la plataforma One Degree ha ayudado a más de 3,3 millones de personas, seguimos totalmente comprometidos con remodelar el panorama de los servicios sociales para que sea más equitativo y digno para todos. Seguimos profundamente comprometidos con nuestra misión. Y seguimos profundamente comprometidos con las personas, los socios y las comunidades a las que servimos”.Para obtener más información sobre One Degree, su misión, su trabajo y su equipo, visite: about.1degree.org

Today Alluma announced that it is rebranding to One Degree to allow the organization to more effectively connect people to the critical resources they need. One Degree expands access to social services and benefits through its community resource platform (1degree.org), and focuses on developing customized referral systems and tools for partners and clients. With over half a million users in 2022 and a growing number of service providers using the One Degree platform, this rebranding refocuses the organization on a path toward making a greater impact on communities in need.

The Board has officially named Rey Faustino the Chief Executive Officer of One Degree. Rey has been serving as interim CEO of Alluma this year to manage the organization’s transition and implement a new strategic path forward for the organization.

The Chairman of the Board, James Yocum stated, “Rey has been a visionary within our industry and a leader within this organization for years, and One Degree will benefit greatly from his continued expertise. Rey took on the role of Interim CEO during a highly challenging time of significant internal and external transitions. He displayed incredible leadership, and through collaboration with staff, supporters and friends, he has helped the organization navigate these shifts with grace, skill and perseverance.”

One Degree’s products and programs will continue to address the growing need to reach marginalized and vulnerable people through new and innovative software. The organization’s mission remains the same, to bring life-changing social services to millions of low-income people seeking help everyday, providing access to everything from housing to healthcare and beyond. One Degree is building on its decades-long track record of change led by people who have both used and worked in social services.

Rey Faustino, the newly appointed CEO of One Degree said, “Our amazing and diverse team, dedicated to a mission that’s critical to so many people’s lives, continues to work hard at increasing access to social services for millions of people seeking help every day. Although the One Degree platform has helped well over 3.3 million people, we remain thoroughly committed to reshaping the social services landscape to be more equitable and dignified for everyone. We remain deeply invested in our mission. And we remain deeply committed to the people, partners, and communities we serve.”

To learn more about One Degree, its mission, their work and their team, please visit: about.1degree.org

One Degree’s Rey Faustino: The tech world shows us it’s possible to dream big and innovate. It’s past time that we use these tools to imagine a safety net for the future.

Imagine the store of the future. You walk into an immaculate, brightly lit room stocked from floor to ceiling with the freshest food on glossy shelves. Instead of the typical store cashier checking out your kale chips and kombucha, the store is dotted with technology to track you.

Weight sensors are in the shelves to track products, cameras eye your every movement, and each item you pick up and put into your bag or backpack is automatically scanned. And then you walk out and instantaneously get billed for the exact items you selected.

This may sound like a distant future, but this is happening now. Automation is here. And it is inevitably going to create significant job displacement — a 2017 report from McKinsey Global Institute warned automation could eliminate 73 million jobs in the United States by 2030.

Last month, I visited one of the two Amazon Go mini-marts in San Francisco. The 800-square-foot stores are the internet giant’s new foray into the brick-and-mortar convenience-store space. It was missing something pretty glaring: cashiers.

Cashierless technology is already spreading. When I shop at my local Safeway grocery store, I usually use the self-checkout line. But while people are talking about how automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning have begun to threaten the jobs and livelihoods of low-skill workers, there aren’t many discussions about how this will affect our social safety net.

Frankly, our safety net is not ready for this deluge of worker displacement. At One Degree, the nonprofit organization I founded seven years ago, we’re leveraging technology to make accessing social services easier. This is imperative because we need infrastructure that meets the size of the problem. The benefits and services that compose the social safety net are scattered among thousands of governmental (food assistance, welfare, health care) and nonprofit programs (homeless shelters, child care, legal services). Navigating these disparate services can be grueling.

When the safety net was introduced in the 1930s, it was innovative social insurance that we know now as Social Security. As a society, we have since created more safety net innovations, such as food stamps and unemployment benefits, to prevent individuals from falling into poverty.

But the safety net has become cumbersome and confusing to navigate. In the Bay Area, 62 percent of people who are hungry, or don’t know where their next meal is coming from, do not qualify for food stamps. They’re stitching together services to feed their families. A One Degree member uses Women, Infants, and Children food service (known as WIC), a food pantry, and a free meals program at a local community center to feed her family of four. Low-income families routinely use a dozen services to make ends meet. Doing so takes hours of time to navigate.

There is hope, though, as innovations in corners of the safety net are popping up. For example, Social Interest Solutions, a national nonprofit organization in Oakland, rolled out One-e-App in 2009, one of the first electronic applications for government benefits, such as Medicaid. Now One-e-App is used as the online application of record for government benefits in Arizona and other states.

At One Degree, we developed mobile applications to make it easier for vulnerable communities to access the social safety net in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County. In the past, people spent hours using paper binders to find resources. Now they’re able to find services right in the palm of their hands. For instance, another One Degree member, a single mother of two in Oakland, would have used a full day traveling across Alameda County to find help with her job search. Using the One Degree mobile app, she was was able to locate and apply to an employment agency immediately.

We need commensurate innovation in the safety net to help people bounce back from job displacement. Contrary to the general stereotypes, roughly 7 in 10 low-income adults own a smartphone with internet access. At One Degree, where over half the people we serve have experienced or are currently experiencing homelessness, we saw a 100 percent increase in mobile smartphone usage over the past four years. Clearly more and more people from vulnerable communities are accessing the internet and expecting the same kinds of innovations in other parts of their lives.

Automation. Artificial intelligence. Big data. These aren’t just buzzwords in the tech world. Imagine using real-time social service data to route people to the right services at the right time before they fall into poverty. Or using AI to automatically qualify people into preventive health care when they apply for food assistance.

The tech world shows us it’s possible to dream big and innovate. It’s past time that we use these tools to imagine a safety net for the future.

Rey Faustino is the founder of One Degree, a tech platform for social services and benefits . He was nominated in 2015 as a Chronicle visionary of the year. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at SFChronicle.com/letters

By  

Rachel Alexander

 and 

Rey Faustino

Originally appeared in New America.org

What do you think of when you hear the term “safety net?”

Maybe it conjures the image of a tightrope walker, and the web of netting beneath them. It’s this netting that allows these aerial artists the freedom to perform, even from such risky heights.

For other people, “safety net” might evoke the nets that firefighters place beneath burning buildings. These nets are insurance for the worst case scenario, for the fires that burn too fast for rescue, for people whose only escape is to jump.

As humans we do a lot of falling. As soon as we learn to walk we begin collecting bumped heads and skinned knees. As we get older the falls change, as do their repercussions. For some of us a fall might be the new venture we throw ourselves into but that never quite gets its wings. For others of us it is the health emergency that drains our bank accounts, or the eviction in the tightest of housing markets.

When we fall– because we all do– the question is: what will be there to catch us? Our savings accounts, or those of our family members? What catches those of us who have neither of these things? When we fall, the question is: do we deserve to be caught?

These were the issues we wrestled with at “Tech for the Safety Net,” a discussion in which Rey Faustino and Nicolas Colin shared their thoughts about the future of the social safety net, and the role that technology has to play in supporting it. Key topics included:

• Social service fragmentation: The government and nonprofit sectors operate in a fragmented way that can feel frustrating, but that was partially by design. Leaders like George H.W. Bush, with his “thousand points of light,” ushered in an era where the obligation for solving social problems fell primarily on under-resourced local service providers, vs. a more standardized “big government” approach. This also means that any given person trying to access help may need to stitch together these “thousand points” to make ends meet. This creates room for technologies to play a critical infrastructure role in social service systems, both in coordinating these services and in helping track and measure the impact of services on users’ lives.
• The stigma around accessing services: Nicolas noted that this is particularly American and less true in countries where it is widely acknowledged that all people benefit from government services. Rey agreed, arguing that this American “bootstrap mentality” is largely a myth, with opportunity and luck as important as hard work in giving people the environments in which they can grow, experiment and take the risks that enable social and economic mobility.
• The pros and cons of a Universal Basic Income (UBI): Nicolas argued against UBI based on his policymaking experience, in which he was always skeptical of single interventions that promised they could solve for a variety of social ills. Rey, on the other hand, thought there might be a place for UBI as one element of a thriving safety net, but agreed that there can be no one “silver bullet” approach.

The panelists wrapped the conversation with calls to action. For tech executives: to engage in discussions and actions that support safety net innovation, so that community members can thrive and so tech leaders themselves can stem the increasing backlash against their companies. For interested community members: to assess who is missing from conversations about the safety net, and to pull those people in as co-creators of solutions.

Our social safety net is supposed to provide a minimum baseline of survival beyond which people cannot drop. There is much work to do to bring our current reality into alignment with that aspiration. But imagine even one step better: building a safety net so robust that it serves as a trampoline, allowing people to bounce back up and out of poverty. The “fail fast, fail often” mentality that has fueled so many Silicon Valley startups is often available only to those with their own personal safety nets — the wealth, networks, and social insurance to bounce back after a potential fall. Imagine how many more entrepreneurs would take risks if everyone knew they were guaranteed a path back to safety when they needed it.

Want more? Click here to listen to our conversation with Rey and Nicolas, moderated by New America CA Director Autumn McDonald.

Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com

By  

Rey Faustino

April 4, 2019

Earlier this year, my organization went on one of its quarterly team retreats. But it wasn’t your average off-site retreat to a board room. We went very far off site—to Montgomery, Alabama, to visit the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

The memorial sits atop a hill overlooking downtown Montgomery. It’s a visually stunning installation of steel and concrete, and is dedicated to the many thousands of black Americans who were lynched between the Civil War and the mid-20th century civil rights movement. As we walked by the dark, rusted columns, we felt swallowed up by the sheer size and magnitude of the structures, and also engulfed by the horror of the racial terrorism that had occurred.

One of my takeaways from the visit was that social justice moves at a glacial pace—but more so that it takes tremendous perseverance and an expansive vision to fuel that movement.

Yet when I look at the work of social justice—especially poverty alleviation—in the United States today, I’m frustrated by our collective obsession with silver bullets. Philanthropy, in particular, seems to be preoccupied by the hottest, newest solutions, even though this narrow focus on silver-bullet solutions won’t solve the complex, stubborn problems of poverty at scale.

If big philanthropy wants a safety net that works, it’s key to support a comprehensive solution. In other words, the safety net of services must actually be a safety network: Every low-income family and individual should have their own network of social services that makes sense for them and their needs.

Understanding the stakes of this issue requires looking briefly at the current state of philanthropy. The way philanthropic funding flows to nonprofit providers is piecemeal and ad hoc. Philanthropy can be fickle—grant-makers may fund an organization one year but not the next year because their interests have changed, which makes financial sustainability difficult for organizations. In addition, grant-makers overwhelmingly prefer to fund the delivery of programs, which often leaves out organizations’ operational costs. And with the advent of social media, more grant-makers are implementing popularity-based grants, which require nonprofits to compete to get the most votes or “likes” in order to win funding. I’d argue that these popularity-based grants are an inefficient use of time for nonprofit grant-seekers, and that they only perpetuate nonprofits’ competing with one another for limited resources.

As a result of these practices, nonprofits struggle to make critical investments in infrastructure and are prone to working in silos. Put another way, this approach creates a social safety net that will always be splintered, which is harmful to people who have to navigate that fragmentation.

But if we think comprehensively, it’s possible to address the wider range of needs of low-income and at-risk families.

To see what this could look like, consider the fact that some government agencies, mostly in the healthcare arena, have already started embracing a more comprehensive approach. In 2016, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services launched the Whole Person Care initiative, a program that aims to ensure that L.A. County’s highest-need patients are connected to a broad but necessary range of services. By coordinating health and social-service agencies, vulnerable and marginalized residents can more easily secure access to the complex system of services that were created to support them in the first place. Indeed, what better way to obtain services like food, shelter, and legal help than by accessing them during a visit to the hospital?

L.A. County is giving us a glimpse of a coordinated future—one that makes life better for low-income families.

But while the healthcare sector is coalescing around building coordinated efforts, philanthropy has been much slower to make the shift. And families don’t have time to waste.

Data from my organization, One Degree, shows that low-income people use a variety of resources to climb the ladder of opportunity. More than two-thirds of low-income families using One Degree search for services in very disparate categories. One mother, for instance, was looking for healthcare, food stamps, groceries, and divorce law. On average, low-income families use up to 12 nonprofit services to make ends meet. But too often, these families get lost in a never-ending scramble: What agency should I visit? What paperwork do I need to fill out? How will I make sure that my family is taken care in the time that it takes to do all of this?

To address poverty—to achieve even some semblance of social justice for low-income families—it’s necessary to go broad, and train our attention on the full range of support people need. It’s not that other, more individual solutions—like food stamps and charter schools—aren’t important. It’s that philanthropic organizations would benefit from zooming out and thinking about more inclusive solutions, rather than jumping from one silver-bullet fad to the next.

Crucially, I’m not saying that there aren’t any philanthropists thinking collectively. In fact, there’s a burgeoning movement called “collective impact,” which is supported by philanthropy, that aims to get community-based organizations, foundations, and schools on the same page when it comes to promoting specific educational outcomes for low-income youth. Still, while the model has inspired similar work elsewhere in the country, it’s limited to youth intervention.

Social change takes time. But if we already know that low-income families take a holistic approach to solving their day-to-day challenges, philanthropic organizations should bring their work in line with these families. If they truly want to end poverty—or at least significantly chip away at it—they need to invest in a comprehensive safety network.

Written by: Diana Hembree

Originally published at www.careinnovations.org, July 8, 2019

The Northeast Valley Health Corporation (NEVHC) is a healthcare powerhouse. It consists of 15 licensed health centers located in Los Angeles County’s San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys, both areas struggling with chronic illness and poverty.

…

NEVHC executives knew they had to deal with those factors – known as “social determinants of health” (SDOH) – to give their patients the best shot at a healthy life. They handed out referrals along with a sheaf of papers. The question was, how could they more effectively link up their patients with potentially life-saving services?

Read the full article at www.careinnovations.org.