RSF Author Dani Carrillo Discusses Her Book: When Care is Conditional

October 16, 2024

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Dani Carrillo is the author of the RSF book When Care is Conditional: Immigrants and the U.S. Safety Net. In When Care is Conditional Carrillo examines how the conditionality of the U.S. safety net impacts undocumented immigrants. In a new interview, Carrillo discusses her findings. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Dani Carrillo is a senior researcher and civic technologist.

Q. What motivated you to write When Care is Conditional? Why is it important to look at the conditionality of the U.S. safety net and its effects on undocumented immigrants?

Multiple things motivated me to write this book. The first is a personal one. As someone who was born in Mexico and migrated to the U.S. as a young child, I've always been surrounded by people in my community who are of different immigration statuses. And I've really seen firsthand the negative impacts that not having papers can have on people's lives. And it never seemed fair to me that people who I knew and loved, and who are contributing so much to our communities, were excluded in many ways – from entering the formal labor market, getting driver's licenses, being able to go back and see their loved ones easily. This really shaped the course of their lives. And I really wanted to understand, how are people getting by? How are people making ends meet despite not having access to fundamental social support systems that over a third of American households participate in every year?

The other motivation is that most of the immigration and poverty literature that I read as a student always seemed to focus on immigrants’ experiences or the experience of those in poverty in big cities or big urban areas. A lot of studies come out of Chicago or New York or Los Angeles, but there wasn't a lot that was focused on the suburbs. Which is surprising to me, because the majority of the U.S. population lives in suburbs. We’ve also seen an uptick in suburban poverty starting in the 2000s. So, with Care is Conditional I wanted to understand how suburban entities are responding to this rise in poverty and how people were experiencing this financial hardship on the ground. Especially when we add language barriers or barriers due to immigration status to it. So, it was a combination of these factors that led me to explore this question further. 

Q. Can you speak briefly to the conditionality of the U.S. safety net? In what ways are immigrants, both documented and undocumented, excluded?

One of the most important things that I hope comes across in my book is that the U.S. safety net, from its onset, has actually been pretty exclusive. It's been predicated on factors that political groups in power have deemed to be “morally worthy” – putting morally worthy in quotes here. So, for example, after the Civil War, some labor groups and politicians actually wanted to push for universal social policies that meant that anybody who was of older age was entitled to assistance from the state because they were no longer working, no longer earning an income. This was the social policy that was passed in Britain at the time. But instead, the social policies that were passed in the U.S. were ones that were predicated on either being a veteran, being a widow or being injured in the job – not just being past working age. So, from its very beginning, it wasn't a universal safety net; it was one that was very conditional on certain factors. 

When we fast forward to when the Social Security Act was passed in 1935, it excluded domestic workers and agricultural workers, which excluded many people of color from this benefit. So, it was an institutionally racist policy. And there are many more examples that I could name of that. But I think the important thing to note is that policymakers are shaping the conditions based on who they think is deserving of care. 

Up until 1970, any person who met the income limit qualified for social assistance programs, regardless of their immigration status. But when the Reagan administration came into office, they created restrictions on things like food assistance and housing assistance so that they would only be reserved for people who were either U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. This was part of a broader pattern of shifting the narrative about welfare to be something that one had to “deserve” – again in quotes – versus something that one was entitled to when one fell on difficult times. 

And then lastly, I'll fast forward to the passage of the Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity and Reconciliation Act, also known as PRWORA, in 1996. It's widely known as welfare reform. But I would say it's more of a regression because it placed further restrictions on social assistance programs on everyone, including U.S. citizens. It also created a five-year waiting period for legal permanent residents to access social benefits, which is, arguably, a time when they need it the most – when they're first migrating to a new country. 

Since then, many states have passed state level programs to offer support to legal permanent residents and other groups with qualifying immigration or refugee status. But there are still a lot of restrictions on what immigrants, both documented and undocumented, have access to, despite their contributions to local, state, and federal economies. You know, there's a lot of rhetoric that immigrants, and particularly undocumented immigrants, are just running the economy dry. And the fact is, they contributed almost $100 billion – billion with a ‘B’ – in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. And this is despite them not having access to a lot of programs, including social security, which they contribute their tax dollars to. So, they're really essential. Undocumented communities are really integrated into the workforce. They make up about 5% of the national workforce and 9% of California's workforce. They are overrepresented in a lot of essential sectors, including construction service industries and caretaking industries. They're so integrated into the workforce already, and yet they're excluded from so many things that other workers have. And so those are just some of the ways in which they're excluded.

Q. What is “conditional safety”? How does it impact immigrants seeking services?

Conditional safety is the concept that any form of – quote, unquote – “safety” that immigrants may feel or have when they enter into spaces, where they can theoretically be open about their immigration status – so, schools, hospitals, or clinics – is really conditional. Because even though there technically may be policies that say that there are no negative repercussions for having undocumented status, there have been instances in the past where these policies have been broken, where this trust has been broken in its implementation. As recently as 2015, a health care clinic in Texas called sheriff's deputies to come in and arrest a woman who was receiving care there for the past 18 months due to her immigration status. And this is despite hospitals, schools, and clinics being designated protected areas by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. So, safety really is conditional on both the policies that are being implemented on immigration at the time, and how they're being implemented, especially by people on the ground. 

All of these places which are considered protected areas, like schools and nonprofit organizations, can help foster a sense of safety and develop and maintain a culture and protocol that communicates clearly to individuals and families that disclosing their undocumented status – or any other marginalized status – will not be used against them. And this can positively impact how safe and comfortable people feel in finding and accessing services. But it's always going to be conditional, unfortunately. And I think that's a reality that has to be acknowledged. 

When I first developed the concept of conditional safety, I was really thinking about the stigma that undocumented communities face around disclosing your immigration status. But I think this concept can really be expanded to other marginalized groups that face a stigma or potential negative consequences to disclosing particular pieces of information, whether it's a former criminal record, a health condition, or even a housing situation, to name a few examples.

One thing that I really want to make clear for my book is that I purposely made the title of my book very broad to say when care is conditional because I really want that to be a question or provocation to the reader to think about. Not just, "Oh, this is about how it's conditional for people based on their immigration status. That's what we need to focus on." It's that there's so many things that care is conditional or provisional upon. How do we reframe that narrative to get rid of that conditionality.

Q. Poverty in the suburbs has increased. At the same time, immigration to the suburbs has also increased. How does place impact access to social services, particularly for immigrants?

Before I answer that question, I want to make sure that I clarify that while these are overlapping trends – an increase of poverty in the suburbs and an increase of international migration to the suburbs – increasing international migration is not necessarily causing increasing poverty levels. There are a lot of factors that contribute to a continuing increase in suburban poverty. The Great Recession, even though it was 15 years ago, really hit suburban areas hard. Many residents experienced job loss or experienced losing their homes. And the suburban population, like the rest of the American population, is also aging. This means that residents are facing reduced incomes because they're no longer in the workforce and may also have other health needs and costs that are rising as well. So, I just wanted to think about those things separately, even though, in my book, I look at them together.

As to how these two trends impact access to services, there are a couple of things I want to note. The first is that nonprofit organizations, as a whole, are generally more concentrated in urban areas, where, historically, there have been higher poverty rates. But the geography of poverty is changing, and this results in what social scientists have termed a spatial mismatch. That means there's a mismatch between where anti-poverty and social service organizations are located and where clients who need the services the most reside. A lot of quantitative sociology literature has pointed to that. But I hadn't seen as much qualitative literature that explored it further, and that's where I wanted to step in. Second is that the spatial mismatch is particularly pronounced for immigrant populations. This is because organizations, especially suburban organizations, may not have the financial resources or staff who are able to provide services in a culturally relevant way. For example, by offering services in one's own native language. 

This was something that I saw in my field work. There were lots of applications to become immigration lawyers or to volunteer at different legal aid clinics in Oakland, for example, which is one of the cities where I did my field work. Compare that to the eastern suburbs that I looked at. There were part-time staff that were basically doing two jobs at once and it was very difficult to find volunteers, especially folks who are Spanish speaking. So, it was just a completely different quality of service. And this really impacted waiting times. At the time of my field work, if you wanted to get an appointment with a legal aid clinic in a suburban area, it took about two months, compared to about one to two weeks in an urban area. So, you can see how this can make a really big difference. That’s just one of the ways that it impacted services.

The good thing is that nonprofit organizations are aware of this need and everyone who I spoke with was really trying their best to respond to it. Organizations in urban areas were establishing satellite offices in more suburban areas. They were really trying to find ways of answering the question, “How do we fill this gap?” Unfortunately, it is going to take time. It's going to take dedicated advocacy to address this issue because in many ways, suburban poverty becomes invisible because it looks different. People may be unhoused, but maybe they sleep in their cars, or maybe they are going from couch to couch. This happens in other areas, but I think, in the suburbs there's a way of trying to just visibly hide things more. And I think that there just needs to be more awareness about that as well as dedicated funding to really close the gap that currently exists.

Q. How do undocumented women primarily gain access to services? What is a “guiding figure” and how do they assist undocumented women access services?

In my book, I really look at the importance of gender and how it shapes access to services. I didn't expect it to be as really pronounced of a difference as it was. I found that many women who I spoke to migrated to the U.S. primarily to reunite with existing family members. Whether that be their husbands or other relatives that were already in the United States. So, there was already some sense of community that was pre-existing, and a primary motivation for their migration was to be closer to them. And so, when they arrived in the States, what ended up happening is that many of them had someone in their network, whether it was a sister or a sister-in-law or an auntie – often they were women – who basically, I say, served as a guiding figure. Guiding figures are women who not only share knowledge by saying, “Hey, here are the different resources and programs that you can access,” but they play a pivotal role in actually transporting women to services, by saying, “Hey, I'll give you a ride. I'm going here too.”

And I think the last part of that – of being a guiding figure to services – is they also help instill trust in the system. Many of the women I spoke to had guiding figures in their lives, but also consequently became guiding figures for others. And because many of them were either undocumented at one point or were currently undocumented themselves they could say, “I know it's scary to disclose your immigration status to apply to the state programs, but actually, it is completely within our rights. And I did it. There were no negative repercussions for me. I know some of the other women who have done it.” And that really helps ease this fear that is very real. Which again, leads back to this conditional safety that people have. And so, the guiding figures really played a really pivotal and crucial role in helping women access services.

When looking at how women primarily gained access to services is when we structurally look at the policies that are in place. Many women that I spoke to for these interviews were also mothers of young children. While some of them came to the U.S. with young children, others ended up having their first child in the United States. Becoming pregnant opens the door to medical services for their pregnancy, which women have access to, regardless of their immigration status. And then once they have their children, access to WIC then opens up, which is a supplemental nutrition assistance program for women with children. But WIC is also meant to be a referral program where women are not only connected to other mothers, but where they're also connected to different nonprofit organizations that are able to provide different forms of assistance. So, these were two of the primary ways where there are already programs that exist – again through their children, through the fact of being a mother – that they then were able to feel a bit more comfortable then accessing other programs and learning about other programs. And then this information was just shared in the community. 

There were a few women who didn't have this kind of pivotal person – a guiding figure – in their life, but it was just literally, “I was walking my kid in their stroller at a park, and this woman noticed I was speaking Spanish, and I struck up a conversation, and they told me about these different organizations that exist.” So, it was both a structural set of factors that are in place that allowed women access services, but also culturally accessing services was reinforced by having this be shared knowledge and information in the community.

Q. Undocumented men face greater barriers to accessing services. Can you briefly discuss the structural and cultural barriers undocumented men face? What strategies do they use to cope with insufficient care? How do men, ultimately, access care?

On a structural level, the infrastructure for men accessing services is just much bleaker than it is for people who can become pregnant or for people who have young children, which are often women. Many of the men that I spoke to in my study migrated to the U.S., not necessarily to reunite with anyone, but to actually support families that they had back home. So, they left behind their partners, their children – their family – to seek better economic opportunities and support them back home. And over time, they continued to stay here. Oftentimes those relationships that they had back home were severed, and they were really left on their own. Other men didn't have families and were just young and took the trip north for better job opportunities. And they, again, didn't have many social networks coming in. And so, it was just a very different type of migration that men had. So, upon coming here, the main focus is really, “How do I how do I get a job? Let me focus on that first.” So, part of the cultural narrative is that finding services is less of a priority. Which, in a lot of ways, makes sense. They want to actually find a job, find stable work to sustain oneself and their loved ones back home. 

But structurally, there also isn't a lot of access to services, because there are no programs that they are able to access through their status as single men. At the time of my interviews, and this has since changed in California, the only services that men were entitled to regardless of their immigration status was emergency medical services. In January 2024, California expanded Medi-Cal – the state's health insurance program – to all populations who qualify for it, regardless of their immigration status. So, now undocumented men in California do have access to that, but at the time of my interviews, they did not. And so, you can imagine the circumstances under which they did seek out emergency medical services had to be very extreme. Unfortunately, many of the men that I spoke to, their first time really setting foot in any type of health clinic or hospital was after a workplace injury. You know, having a roof collapse on them. Or having some sort of accident in the workplace, where they said, “I have to do this. It's essential that I do this.” But as I share in the opening of chapter four, there were health conditions that many men had that they did not seek out services for because it is really hard to find that information. It is extremely difficult. And so, I think it's fair, especially at the time, for them to think, “Well, there really is nothing there for me, so what's the point of looking?” And so, these structural and cultural factors sort of reinforce each other.

The coping mechanisms can be thinking, “Well, I don't need that. I'm strong.” “I can push through it.” “I work these really physical, arduous jobs, I can get through it all.” In some cases, finding ways to self-medicate. Whether it be finding ways to get alternative forms of medicine or even prescription medicine through their networks. To sort of say, “Okay, I have these symptoms. I know that generally this is what I have to take. Let me see where I can procure that.” But unfortunately, the coping strategies were just finding ways to really to make it work, to just care for yourself. And, you know, sometimes it can work out. But there's a lot of risk in that; in saying “I'm going to determine the dosage for this.” Or “I'm going to do this without speaking to a health professional first.” But this is the sort of situation that they're put in by not having access to these services.

And I do want to note that these are strategies that women who were undocumented also partook in, especially those who may not have access to services through their children. I don't want to dismiss that and sort of paint it in this binary way. It's just overall, these are the patterns that I found in my book. And I think there's so much more to explore: What does it look like when you're queer? When you're gender nonconforming? How does that add to all of that? I just didn't have the space or the time to explore that.

Q. How did the participants in your study push back against negative public discourse about Latinx immigrants?

I'm really glad this is one of the questions, because the chapter devoted to this is really my favorite chapter in the book. Reflecting on it now, it wasn't part of my intention in doing my research to say, “I'm going to find ways that people are resisting this narrative.” It just grew so organically from talking to so many people. So, there are four main, I call them, counter-narratives that I discuss in my book that people used to counter anti-immigration rhetoric.

The first counter-narrative that I discuss is what I call the “legality narrative.” You know, the term illegal – quote, unquote – the “illegal immigrant” is just such a misnomer. The people I spoke to would say, “I work really hard. I pay my taxes. I abide by all the laws.” People are extra vigilant when they're driving because they want to reduce their risk of having any contact with law enforcement, or any immigration authorities, in any way. And so, the legality narrative says, “You know, even though people say that I'm illegal, if you see all of the actions that I take, I'm actually very legal. I am legally abiding. I abide by all of the laws.” And so, this is something that was really prominent, and came up with a lot of the participants that I spoke with.

The other narrative is the “work narrative.” And so, this is the narrative that really pushes back against the notion that immigrants really just come here to suck all the resources from the U.S. And that could not be further from the truth. Undocumented immigrants are actually overrepresented in the workforce compared to the general American population. And this is something that was reinforced by participants during interviews. They would say, essentially, “I actually work extremely hard every day. I have to in order to survive here.” And so, there was a bit of boundary making that was done through this narrative where they say, "Look at other people, you know, people who are born in the U.S. They're begging for things. I'm not begging for anything.” That can be a bit dangerous, because you don't know what situations others are in, but the point is, the notion that I'm here to just seek resources is not true at all. The work narrative says, “I'm actually here to work, and that's what I do every day.” 

The legality and work narratives are interesting because they're both really focused on individual actions, “I, as an individual, am law abiding. I, as an individual, am hard working. And this is why I really do deserve to be here and do deserve some form of basic protections and services.” The other two narratives are ones that really push back against the system at large, the immigration system that, essentially, is what creates all of these barriers that people have to face. And so, another narrative is what I call the “injustice narrative.” and that narrative says, “The fact that I'm at risk of being separated from my family every day is not fair at all.” “The fact that I work really hard, that I contribute so much to society, and that I don't have access to basic needs. That just isn't fair.” So, there's something really unjust about the way that things are set up. This was one that was invoked by a lot of women. Particularly mothers, who say things like, “I'm involved in schools. I am raising my children. I'm supporting my husband. And none of this is being acknowledged by society at large. And that's just really unfair.”

And the final narrative, which was more often invoked by the men that I spoke with is one of humor and equality. Basically casting like a light on the fact that having papers or not having papers doesn't define my worth and who I am using humor. The humor narrative came out when one person said, “Oh yeah, sometimes people ask me if I have papers. And I just respond, ‘Well, no, not really, but I have toilet paper.’” And just kind of laughing it off, but doing so in a way that says, like, “Why? Why does this matter?” As one person said, “Whether I'm legal or not, it doesn't matter at the end of the day, I'm human.” And so that was another one that really pushed back against this notion that people are less morally worthy or less deserving just because of their immigration status. So, these are some of the ways that through discussions, discursively, they offer a counter-narrative to all the anti-immigrant rhetoric that they face.

But as I mentioned in my book, it's also about the actions that they take. There are a lot of ways that the participants that I spoke to really resisted the exploitative conditions that they faced. There was one case where a woman that I spoke to – she was a caretaker and she took care of multiple children for an entire day – at the end of the day, I think she earned $20 to $25, which is nothing. And one of her friends in her network, who is also a caretaker and is also undocumented, said, “Hey, that's not cool. You need to charge more. Charge at least $100. Get your worth.” And so, when she brought that to her employer, the employer basically said, “No, there's no way we're going to offer you that.” She said, “Okay, well, I'm not going to offer services to you anymore. This isn't fair to me.” And this was another way to resist the conditions that they're facing. Other examples include finding workarounds to access resources. There was a college course that someone wanted to take, and there was some form of ID that they had to upload on a website to register. And they said, “You know what, I'm just going to go there in person and see if I can enroll.” And they were able to do that. So, there are also these other ways, through actions, that individuals are resisting a system that's discriminating against them solely based on their immigration status.

Q. How did the election of Donald Trump and the COVID-19 pandemic impact immigrants’ access to the U.S. safety net?

The timing of my book was just so interesting, because all of the field work that I conducted was before the Trump Administration came into power. My last interview took place the day after Trump was elected to office. So, all of the very real fear and hesitations and concerns that people faced in accessing services existed before Trump, and the election of Trump only exacerbated all of these fears and worries. I think the way it most obviously did so is through the leaking of a public charge memo in 2018. The memo, in its original framing, was meant to prevent individuals from acquiring green cards, visas, or other forms of admission into the U.S. if they had participated in any non-cash social assistance program. That includes Medicaid, CHIP or the Children's Health Insurance Program, Medicare or SNAP, which is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. When this memo was leaked, a lot of organizations that provide services to families, including immigrants and older adults, pushed back, and said, “You can't pass this new regulation because this is going to prevent a lot of people from participating in these programs, which they need.” And this created quite a stir; we saw it in many immigrant communities. And even though the public charge rule in its original framing was not passed – it was significantly cut down, so it wasn't as severe and as radical of a shift – it still created a lot of fear. In 2021, one in four immigrant families in California avoided enrolling in programs that they were qualified for and that they were entitled to because they were worried that this would negatively impact their immigration status or the immigration status of a family member. And again, this is in California where the political climate and policies are generally more supportive of the immigrant population. So, you can only imagine what this would look like in other states. So, the effect of the public charge memo and ruling was really big; it created an extremely large chilling effect that we're still feeling to this day. 

As far as how COVID-19 impacted undocumented communities. In many ways, it really made the the exclusion of these communities from safety net programs even more pronounced. That is, the safety net expanded to meet the needs of people who were experiencing financial or health hardships, but if you were undocumented you didn’t have access to this extra governmental support. So for example, the qualifying floor for programs like SNAP was raised so that the qualifying income was higher than it usually was. They also increased the benefit amounts that were given to people, so people had more cash for food. But unfortunately, undocumented individuals were largely left behind from many of these expansions. They were not eligible for social assistance programs and were not eligible for general financial stipends that amounted to about $3,200 for a household of one in 2020, and $1,400 for every additional child. And this is really what saved a lot of people from falling into an even more precarious financial situation. This is despite undocumented workers being disproportionately represented in essential workforces like the agricultural industry and service industries. So, undocumented communities were helping the country run, while continuing to be excluded from systems of care, like health insurance, food assistance, and cash stipends.

To their credit, California did create two safety net programs that were specifically for undocumented families: pandemic EBT and the Disaster Relief Assistance for Immigrants programs. These benefits amounted to $500 for a household of one and $1,000 for a household total. So, this is much less than what was given to others.

So, those are two of the ways in which the Trump administration and COVID-19 impacted access to the safety net for undocumented communities.

Q. What policy and practices would you recommend to create more inclusive access to services for immigrants and for other excluded groups?

It's always hard for me to answer this question because there are just so many ways in which the safety net and the immigration system, at large, need to be reformed. I name a lot of short- and medium-term policies and efforts in my book, many of which are actually modeled from policies that have already been passed in California. So, for example, starting in 2021, any household who qualifies for the earned income tax credit or EITC is now eligible for it regardless of their immigration status. And this is huge, because so much research has shown that the EITC is a particularly impactful poverty alleviation program for both the short-term and the long-term. And just this year, which I mentioned before, California passed a policy that makes it so that anyone who qualifies for Medi-Cal – the state's public health insurance program – is eligible for it, regardless of their immigration status. But short of that, there are other examples of programs at a more local level, either through cities or counties, that provide their own health insurance programs for low-income households regardless of their immigration status. So that is something that can definitely be applicable. And other cities and other counties are starting locally and are building momentum for these types of programs to pass. Unfortunately, right now, SNAP – or food assistance – is still a benefit that people cannot qualify for based on their immigration status. So, this is another place to think about how can we change this starting at a local level, and really help keep our communities healthy? Other policies that can be explored are municipal ID programs. These are programs that essentially make it possible for individuals who are undocumented to have driver's licenses or other forms of state or city or county identification. It just makes it a lot of things easier. From just driving to work, to opening up a bank account, to verifying one's Identity at various institutions like schools or workplaces or hospitals. So, all of these are things that can really be expanded upon across the U.S. 

And if we're thinking blue sky, ideally, what would things look like? I would think about tax reform at a national level. In a recent NPR interview, Matthew Desmond stated that if the top 1% of American households paid their taxes, that would essentially amount to $175 billion, which is enough to lift everyone out of poverty. And I would add that if corporations paid their taxes, that would also close the gap a bit more. More inclusive access essentially means bringing more revenue in for social assistance programs through tax reformation, and then raising the poverty floor for everyone who contributes to the U.S. tax system.

But I always go back to thinking about the causes of poverty and exclusion in the first place. So, for undocumented immigrants, their exclusion from the formal labor market vastly limits their earnings and increases their risk for exploitation. And so, really thinking about what immigration reform could look like. That would create a vastly more inclusive system for them. The last immigration amnesty was passed nearly 40 years ago, in 1986, so that is something to be considered. But short of that, there are ways to think about other things, like how do we ease restrictions on work visas? How do we help facilitate more guest worker programs so that workers really are entitled to the benefits of their labor? While I don't touch on this in my book, I've recently become more educated about how people who are incarcerated are essentially exempt from the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery. So, they're not given access to their labor earnings and that creates incredibly difficult conditions for reentry. So, I think for policies, yes, access to more services provides temporary relief for marginalized communities. But how do we create long lasting change to shift the conditions that are causing marginalization and poverty in the first place? And that's when we turn to programs that explore things like universal basic income and reparations. All of this can be funded through major tax reformation. 

So yes, there are a lot of short- and medium-term recommendations that can come along the way, of course. Like expanding access to people for safety net programs, regardless of immigration status and allocating dedicated funding to day labor centers. But I think it's important to think bigger and go back to the root cause of things if we really want change that's durable. That shifts the cultural narrative of poverty, and that's one of the major aims of my book, to show that access to services is a fundamental human right. It doesn't have to be earned based on notions of deservingness that are determined by people that are in power. I think a culture shift is necessary, and part of that comes through things like reframing discussions around poverty to not be about how do we help those experiencing poverty but really understanding deep down what is contributing to poverty, and how do we change that system?

How do we take actions that help towards actually having a more universal system of care for everybody? And this is something that is not something that just helps people who may be struggling right now, but it really helps all of us. There are studies that have shown that high levels of inequality don't bode well for societies as a whole. So, really lowering inequality, really having a more universal system of care, is something that will just benefit everyone in our communities. And I really hope that this book helps provide an argument for it and helps provide ways to tangibly think about how we can work towards that.

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