COVID-19 Special Edition
APRIL 8, 2020
"We need to get more money into the hands of more people, more quickly."
Bonus episode! We share four perspectives about the impact the global pandemic is having on America’s poor. We discuss healthcare, housing, cash transfers, homelessness, and bail.
Stephen Pimpare is a nationally recognized expert on poverty and U.S. social policy. He debunks the idea that COVID is the great equalizer, and explains why immediate cash transfers are critical to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on the poor.
Joe Huston is Managing Director of GiveDirectly, the first and largest non-profit organization that gives cash directly to people in poverty. He shares how they are reaching the needy and providing thousands with critical funds right now.
Maria Foscarinis is the Founder and Director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. We talk about successful strategies to house the homeless and give them cash, as well as special funding to address homelessness in the CARES Act.
Robin Steinberg is the founder and CEO of The Bail Project. Her organization is doing the immense work to release as many Americans held on bail as possible at this time, what states are doing to help, and how decarceration is now quickly gaining traction around the country.
Find out more:
Stephen Pimpare is a nationally recognized expert on poverty, homelessness, and U.S. Social policy. He is also a Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire and teaches courses on American Politics and Public Policy. His most recent book is Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down & Out on the Silver Screen, a history of poverty and homelessness in the movies.
Follow him on Twitter @stephenpimpare.
Joe Huston is the Managing Director of GiveDirectly, the first and largest non-profit organization that gives cash directly to people in poverty and that works to reshape the way we think about international donations.
Follow GiveDirectly @GiveDirectly and Joe @JHust
Maria Foscarinis is the founder and executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, and has advocated for solutions to homelessness at the national level since 1985.
Follow her on Twitter @MariaFoscarinis.
Robin Steinberg is the founder and CEO of The Bail Project, an unprecedented national effort to combat mass incarceration by transforming the pretrial system in the U.S.
Follow The Bail Project on Twitter @bailproject.