September 2023

Progress Newsletter

By Savannah Lira, Program Officer

PVF is proud to serve as the fiscal sponsor for The Jackie Speier Foundation, a community initiative addressing child poverty in San Mateo County.

The Jackie Speier Foundation has announced its first initiatives: eliminating child poverty in San Mateo County and keeping families in their homes.

On August 18th, the San Mateo County Rising: Ending Child Poverty Summit was held in South San Francisco, where former Congresswoman Jackie Speier hosted over 300 of San Mateo County’s most qualified leaders, academics, CEOs, activists, and experts in the field of poverty alleviation. The summit’s keynote address was delivered by Dr. Matthew Desmond of Princeton University and author of Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller, Evicted, and best-seller, Poverty, by America. 

Dr. Matthew Desmond above, below in conversation with Jackie Speier (Photos courtesy of Steve Maller)

San Mateo County is the fourth richest county in the United States. From Jackie's study on child poverty, the income of the top 1% is 50 times greater than the income of the remaining 99%. Every 10 sq miles resides a million dollar plus income tax filer bordered by 27,000 children living at various poverty levels, with some families subsisting on less than $2,000 a month. Single parent households, predominately led by women of color, have the highest rate of poverty in San Mateo County.

In addition, a lack of affordable housing leaves too many residents vulnerable to homelessness. A renter in San Mateo County needs to earn $11,667 per month to afford median asking rents. This requires a job that pays $67.31 per hour and the average minimum wage in CA is $15.00 per hour.

Nearly 60% of unhoused individuals in San Mateo County in 2022 were homeless for the first time and over 32% of the unhoused are women. 

Jackie wants to eliminate this. At the summit she introduced the "Baby Bonus Project", a 3-year pilot that will pay $300/month to a group of low-income parents on Medicaid with newborns at the start of 2024. She has raised $750,000 for the first year of the pilot, made up of donations to the Jackie Speier Foundation and generous contributions from the budgets of San Mateo County Supervisors Noelia Corzo and Ray Mueller.

In addition, Jackie has announced her plans for an Eviction Prevention Fund for low-income San Mateo County residents who require legal assistance once they have been given an eviction notice.

Jackie Speier above, below with San Mateo County Supervisors Noelia Corzo and Ray Mueller.

Also at the summit was Speier’s successor in Congress, Representative Kevin Mullin, who announced his plans for a bill to update the decades-old federal poverty formula. The Federal Poverty Level was created in 1960 and is calculated as three times the cost of an adequately adjusted diet from 1964 and based upon data from 1955. Although adjusted upward for inflation, it assumes outdated assumptions that families spend the majority of their budget on food. The poverty level does not account for housing costs in different geographic regions, childcare, transportation, costs, or payroll taxes.

Currently the formula is solely based on food costs and sets the level at $30,000 for a family of four, but Mullin wants it to be increased to take into account the cost of housing, medical care and child care.

Representative Kevin Mullin

The event was an inspiring idea of imagining a world without child poverty. There is much work to be done and if you would like to support the Jackie Speier Foundation in their efforts, please visit the website below.