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Students & Innovative Emergency Aid

Published by USC Bedrosian Center on

Even before the COVID pandemic brought the notion of precarity to the mainstream, many populations in the U.S. and abroad faced life through different types of insecurity.

In 2019, after hearing  story after story from students, Cara Esposito and the Leonetti/O’Connell Family Foundation created an emergency aid program. The project was co-designed with researchers at the USC Sol Price Center for Social Innovation and students experiencing precariousness.

This discussion address the program’s creation as well as the ongoing evaluation and co-creation of the processes, policies, and implementation.

Emergency Aid programs work! Using aid from this pilot program, students at USC and LACCD were able to continue schooling under tenuous circumstances.

So … what now?

Connect with our guests:
Cara Esposito

Executive Director of the Leonetti/O'Connell Family Foundation
Adjunct Professor, USC Price

Gary Painter

Professor
Chair of the Department of Public Policy
Director of the Sol Price Center for Social Innovation
Director, Homelessness Policy Research Institute

Victoria Ciudad-Real

Project Specialist
USC Sol Price Center for Social Innovation

Hilary Olson

Public Policy & Management PhD Candidate
USC Price

These conversations are available both as an audio only podcast and as videos on our YouTube playlist.

Listen or subscribe to the podcast at ApplePodcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify, or your favorite podcasting app. Don’t forget to like or share!

Thank you to our co-producers Aubrey Hicks and Jonathan Schwartz as well as our beloved sound supervisors, The Brothers Hedden. Recorded at the USC Price School.

Email us at [email protected].

Bedrosian Center