Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan
Joan and Sanford Weill HallWe support and promote faculty research across the University of Michigan campuses. We seek out research projects focused on strategies to address poverty with effective, real-world solutions.
Evaluating the Young Black Men, Masculinities, and Mental Health (YBMen) Project
The Young Black Men, Masculinities, and Mental Health (YBMen) Project is a global movement that centers the voices, experiences, and realities of Black men and boys. At the core of the YBMen Project is a social media-based program that delivers mental health education and social support to participants through timely, culturally sensitive, age-appropriate, and gender-specific…
Plumbing Poverty as a Social Determinant of Health: Measuring the Effects of Public
Complete and adequate plumbing in people’s homes is a growing concern for Michigan communities and affects poor and minority households disproportionately. The State of Michigan recently committed $1.5 million to a pilot program to fund residential plumbing repairs through the Social Determinants of Health Housing Stability Health Home Pilot Plumbing Repair Assistance program. The Wayne…
The Effect of Letters of Recommendation in the Youth Labor Market
The project: Employment among young people is slower to recover after shocks like recessions, and unemployment and disconnection rates are 30-80% higher for Black and Hispanic youth than for their White peers. In a working paper, Sara Heller and Judd Kessler tested whether providing youth with personalized recommendation letters from supervisors in New York City’s…
This research seeks to provide lessons from the Latin American experience with cash transfers during the pandemic in order to inform comparative debates on poverty solutions…
Detroit Housing Counseling and Homeownership Project
The project: The goals of this project are to better understand the state of first-time homebuyer education in Detroit and to analyze public data sources that represent the state of sales and homeownership in Detroit. Another aim is to assemble funders, public institutions, and the 16 HUD-certified housing counseling agencies in Detroit to identify best…
The project: The aim of this project is to pilot and assess the feasibility of a “community tech workers model” — a community-driven, “train the trainer” model that equips Detroit residents to provide digital support to community members experiencing digital poverty. Inspired by the transformative community health workers model, the pilot program aims to understand:…
The AfricanFuturist Greenhouse
This proposal will combine the African traditions of generative economy with contemporary technology design to create an AfricanFuturist greenhouse. The greenhouse exterior will be designed by local artists from the African American community to provide aesthetic fit to the museum surroundings. The interior will be designed and prototyped by University of Michigan students, such that…
The goal of this project is to assess the feasibility of using grocery delivery to strengthen services related to the special supplemental nutrition program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) by improving access to and use of food benefits during pregnancy. Grocery delivery, a well-established and inexpensive service, removes logistical barriers to obtaining healthy foods…
Poverty Alleviation through Entrepreneurship and Urban Microenterprise Development
Over the past decade, there has been an increase in the number of microenterprise development and neighborhood entrepreneurship training programs in Detroit. The impetus of these programs is to stimulate urban economic development and neighborhood revitalization in the city’s underserved communities. The aim of this study is to evaluate these programs collectively with respect to…
Beyond Rhetoric: Confronting and Combating Racism in Genesee County, Michigan
On June 10, 2020, the Genesee County Board of Commissioners approved a resolution declaring racism a public health crisis. This research project aims to ensure this resolution has a meaningful impact on the health and well-being of residents of color, extending beyond mere rhetoric. To accomplish that, researchers will: Develop a decision-making Community Action Council…
Democracy’s Denominator: How Citizenship-based Redistricting Impacts Racial Minority Voters
The project: For the past half century, congressional and state legislative districts in the U.S. have been drawn to equalize the total population of each district. However, legislators in several states with Republican-controlled legislatures have hinted at potentially changing the unit of apportionment to eligible citizen voters, and the Trump administration took steps to facilitate…
The project: The Detroit River Story Lab sought to partner with local organizations in their ongoing efforts to strengthen the narrative infrastructure of the Detroit River corridor in order to reconnect communities with the river and its stories. The term “narrative infrastructure,” as used by the story lab, refers to the fabric of shared stories…
The Study Of Black Families’ Response To COVID In The Support Of Mathematics Learning
COVID-19 has further exposed the racial inequalities within the U.S., notably in the disproportionate mortality rates of Black people. Black families must adapt to a new racialized landscape that includes the precarious intersections of public health, economic, and racial crises. This project uses a mixed methods case study design to amplify how Black families make…
Racial inequities in American policing are at the forefront of public consciousness in 2020. This research project will evaluate the physiological stress Black and white people experience during routine traffic stops, offering insights on the relationship between policing and minority health. Study participants will listen to audio recordings of actual traffic stops, as recorded by…
Virulent Hate: Anti-Asian Racism and Resistance during the COVID-19 Pandemic
The project: In the U.S., the first half of 2020 saw a sharp rise in hate incidents targeting Asian Americans, who have been scapegoated for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). This project – which is a collaboration with the Stop AAPI Hate Reporting Center, Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University, and the Asian American Foundation – aims…
Systems and structures of poverty – the profit of debt
The project: Household debt has been on the rise in the U.S. for the past three decades. These debts accrue in a variety of ways from attempting to climb the ladder of opportunity (student loans), seeking stability for one’s family (housing), making ends meet when money is tight (credit cards), getting sick or injured (health…
The Effect of COVID-19 on Food Insecurity in the United States
The project: The COVID-19 pandemic and the societal changes it has prompted in the United States are profoundly and quickly changing American life. This research aimed to measure the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on food insecurity in the United States. The process: Wave one of a survey of adults with low incomes (which began…
Program on Equity In Child Health (PECH) at Mott Hospital
This project aims to examine the potential for inequity resulting from variation in the actual care provided by clinicians and hospital personnel to children and their families. Considerable research demonstrates differences by gender, income, race and ethnicity in the way adult patients are provided care across numerous conditions (e.g., heart attacks, treatment for pain, diagnostic…
People living in poverty have limited access to financial resources that permits economic exchange. In turn, this limits formal economic participation. Prior research has shown that alternative, local currency systems, used alongside national currency systems (like USD), can enhance local economies by helping people experiencing poverty initiate or participate in economically productive activities. In the…
The project: The COVID-19 pandemic is creating conditions in Detroit and across the country that have led to novel cases of need at the intersection of food and transportation insecurity. In response, the City of Detroit’s Parks & Recreation Division and Innovation Team, in partnership with Gleaners, United Way for Southeastern Michigan, Wayne Metropolitan Community…
The project: The COVID-19 pandemic has been especially damaging to communities of color in the United States. Disproportionate rates of illness and death have combined with higher rates of unemployment, precarious access to medical care, and overburdened supportive services to intensify the impact on Black and Latino individuals, families, and neighborhoods. An especially important case…
Partnerships that Support Confident Use and Management of Point-of-Use Drinking Water Units in Flint
Many Flint residents still do not have confidence in the quality of their municipal drinking water, despite the use of filtration systems. This project aims to support progress within the Flint community to build knowledge of point-of-use water filtration systems designed to provide clean drinking water for Flint students and residents and to promote confidence…
How Students Make College Decisions: The Role of Family, School and Financial Aid Provision
The project: This project aimed to better understand how students make decisions about what to pursue after high school, and the role of family, school, geographic context, and available financial aid in shaping those decisions. The process: The research pilot, which was later expanded to an ongoing study, consisted of interviews with 36 University of…
Evaluating violence-reduction and summer youth employment programs
This grant will allow Sara Heller, an assistant professor of economics at U-M, to expand on three current research projects that can provide evidence to guide the development of effective interventions aimed at low-income youth. Evaluation of Philadelphia WorkReady: Heller ran a randomized controlled trial of Philadelphia’s youth summer job program, called WorkReady, in the…
The project: The national system for preventing and addressing homelessness, known as the Continuum of Care (CoC), is not well understood, and the capacity of these systems to successfully address homelessness has never been evaluated. The Continuums of Care are most often locally-organized groups of actors that receive funding from the federal government to create and…
Potential health gains from income and wealth tax proposals in the U.S.
The project: Presidential candidates in the 2020 election have made income inequality a major issue. While many candidates have introduced comprehensive tax policies, there has been little research done to understand the impact of income gains from various tax policy proposals on long-term health outcomes. This study is designed to collate evidence around the link…
Understanding How Poverty Affects Water Affordability in Detroit
The project: Water affordability and access in the City of Detroit is a growing concern for city officials, area residents, and community groups working in the city. In this project, the researcher will work with the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD), Office of Sustainability, and the Detroit Health Department (DHD) to examine how the…
Youth Voice in Poverty Solutions
The project: Young people should participate in institutions and decisions that affect their lives, but youth are not usually involved when adults make anti-poverty policy decisions. The purpose of the project is to amplify the voices of young people in community-based strategies against poverty. The process: Researchers worked with adult advisers at several schools and…
The project: The national system for preventing and addressing homelessness, known as the Continuum of Care (CoC), is not well understood, and the capacity of these systems to successfully address homelessness has never been evaluated. The Continuums of Care are most often locally-organized groups of actors that receive funding from the federal government to create and…
Potential health gains from income and wealth tax proposals in the U.S.
The project: Presidential candidates in the 2020 election have made income inequality a major issue. While many candidates have introduced comprehensive tax policies, there has been little research done to understand the impact of income gains from various tax policy proposals on long-term health outcomes. This study is designed to collate evidence around the link…
Michigan Evictions: Assessing Data Sources and Exploring Determinants
The project: Each year, tens of thousands of Michigan households lose their homes as a result of court-ordered evictions, and Michigan cities have some of the highest eviction rates in the nation. The goal of this project is to analyze available data to better understand the prevalence, patterns, and causes of evictions in Michigan, and…
The project: Evidence suggests that teaching cooking skills can help people better manage food insecurity by teaching them how to better reduce food waste, budget and plan meals, and cook healthy meals with inexpensive ingredients. In this research partnership between Community Health and Social Services Center (CHASS) in Detroit, the University of Michigan Medical School and…
Engaging Low-Income and Minority Communities in Prioritizing Community Health Benefits
There are a variety of competing health needs in communities, particularly in minority and low-income communities, which often have worse health outcomes than other communities. This project, a collaboration between the University of Michigan and Friends of Parkside, a non-profit on Detroit’s eastside, proposes a new approach to address health disparities by meaningfully engaging communities…
The project: Over-criminalization and reliance on retributive punishment have resulted in a criminal justice system that entrenches poverty and harms those on the margins. By shifting the focus to healing, rather than punishment, the criminal justice system can simultaneously address the root causes of offending behavior and improve lives while enhancing public safety. In 2017,…
“It Depends”: How Discretion in the Financial System Contributes to Exclusion and Marginalization
Positive Organizational Work Experiences as an Antidote to Poverty and Exploitation
The project: Work can be a vehicle for dehumanization of workers — think human trafficking, or even legitimate opportunities that use workers as commodities. Moreover, in vulnerable populations in particular, the realities of housing, transportation, or childcare may serve as critical barriers to employment. This project aimed to to study how positive organizations instill work with…
The project: Within the Midwest, Michigan has the highest rate of youth disconnected from the educational and work opportunities necessary for adult well-being. Trauma may well be a crucial player in this disconnect, contributing to later experiences of poverty. New research has shed light on the potential of trauma-informed care (TIC) and Restorative Practices (RP) to…
The Performance of Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance System
The project: Unemployment Insurance (UI) has historically provided stability to families through periods of economic hardship, keeping 3.2 million individuals out of poverty nationally in 2010. Since then, a variety of reforms reduced the duration of benefit eligibility by six weeks and restricted eligibility for UI, spiking the rate of claims denials to 41% by…
The project: In March 2017, a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) by two physicians called for research on the potential “chilling effect” that increased immigration enforcement under the new presidential administration would have on immigrant’s willingness to seek healthcare or government services. Given that the timely receipt of health and social…
In the fall of 2015, Alternatives for Girls successfully piloted a new “Asset Building” model to encourage middle school girls and their families to academically prepare for high school, career and college, and to save for future post‐secondary education and training expenses. The next phase of work will support up to 60 middle and high…
Breaking the Cycle: Refining the Trauma-Informed Clinical Ethnographic Narrative Interview (CENI)
The project: In 2016, over 9,700 family households across Michigan, accounting for 24,766 people, entered an emergency shelter due to homelessness. The majority of these households were headed by a single female with one or two children under 11 years of age. Prior research has demonstrated that more than 90% of mothers who become homeless…
Supporting Economic Mobility through Community Mentorship
The project: The Eastside Community Network in Detroit and the University of Michigan School of Information evaluated the impact of the Lower Eastside Economic Mobility (LEEM) program, which connects residents with low incomes with mentors from the community, with the goal of addressing known barriers to stable employment such as low self-efficacy and limited access…
Breaking the “Starving Student” Myth: Understanding and Addressing Food Insecurity Needs on Campus
The project: Food insecurity, a condition of limited or uncertain access to nutritious food, is a critical issue for students’ health, academic achievement, and future well-being. Recent studies, including one conducted at the University of Michigan in 2015, have shown unprecedented high levels of food insecurity on college campuses. The process: This mixed-methods project assessed…
According to the USDA, 15.6 million households were food insecure at some point in 2016. For these households, sources of free food – like food banks, churches, and other nonprofit organizations – are critical to their day-to-day survival. Food Finder, a nonprofit organization, is already working to create the first fully verified database of free…
The project: Environmental justice research has shown that low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, such as those in Southwest Detroit, are more likely to experience higher levels of pollution. In Southwest Detroit, residential and commercial areas are in close proximity to ongoing heavy industries and high-volume transportation corridors, increasing concerns about the local air and…
The project: Wealth plays a pervasive and pernicious role in transmitting inequality. Wealth (assets like savings and financial holdings such as housing) differs from income (wages, salaries, and cash assistance from the government) and is generally more unequally distributed than income. This contributes to widening social inequality, including impacts on educational attainment. Wealth demonstrably impacts youth…
The project: Energy poverty, or the gap in energy affordability, is a burden on low-income households amounting to millions of dollars in utility arrears. This burden negatively impacts a household’s long-term health, education, employment, and financial stability. Energy efficiency offers an opportunity to address energy poverty through energy waste reduction measures such as LED lighting, energy-efficient…
The Politics of Technology for the Poor: Between India and the World
The project: Technological innovation seems to have enormous potential to improve the lives of the poor, from improving sanitation to increasing access to education. But these interventions often have limited user interest and uptake. This project examined whether we can do a better job of leveraging technology for the poor, with a specific focus in…
Helping Across Generations: An Exploratory Study of Blue Collar Workers’ Retirement Well-Being
The project: With today’s young adults facing increasing financial pressures, it is parents that often come to the rescue. Older adults from working-class backgrounds often provide help to their adult children and extended families, which can affect family relationships and their own economic well-being, particularly in retirement. This project explored the impacts of these arrangements…
The project: People living with serious mental illness disproportionately live in chronic poverty; conversely, poverty is a risk factor for mental health problems. While 70% of people with serious mental illness want to work, only 10-15% are employed, in part because social and cognitive challenges may interfere with finding a job. This project explored innovative ways…
The project: In the United States, nearly half of pregnancies are unintended, and unintended pregnancies occur five times more often among poor compared to affluent women. The consequences of unintended pregnancy for women’s education and earnings are substantial, and children born as a result of unintended pregnancy are much more likely to live in poverty…
The project: Each year, non-payment of property taxes causes thousands of Detroit residents to lose their homes to tax foreclosure. Detroit’s exceptionally high tax rate disproportionately burdens low-income residents, threatening their ability to maintain homeownership and attain long-term financial stability. Michigan law requires local governing bodies to make a Poverty Tax Exemption (PTE) available for…
Improving Health and Strengthening Communities
The project: Health and poverty are inextricably linked. Health problems interfere with work and education, and poverty exacerbates health problems, producing a cycle of negative influence that maintains both poverty and ill-health. An effective approach to improve health is through community health workers (CHWs) recruited from and working in their home neighborhoods. Such positions also…
Preserving Low-Income Housing in Detroit
The project: The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program is the nation’s largest source of financing for building or rehabilitating affordable housing. The sale of the credits provides equity to help finance the production of decent affordable housing for low-income renters who are in or near poverty, many of whom are elderly or disabled or…
Barrier Busting in the HOPE Village Neighborhood Network
The project: Sometimes small barriers, solvable with relatively minor amounts of funding, present major obstacles for those living in poverty. For many Detroit residents, these barriers prevent them from making progress toward their goals of economic self-sufficiency.Through a partnership between the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and Focus: HOPE, a nonprofit civil and…
Targeting Poverty in the Courts: Improving the Measurement of Ability to Pay
The project: In March 2015, the U.S. Justice Department issued a scathing report that outlined the systematic criminalization of offenses like parking and minor traffic tickets and even unmowed lawns. Fines and failure to pay result in cascading consequences that illustrate the legal cost of being poor: mounting fines and late fees, license suspensions, and…
The project: More than 85% of persistently poor counties in the U.S. are rural, and yet, researchers and policymakers overwhelmingly focus on urban poverty. This study set out to gain a better understanding of the factors likely to contribute to material hardship and financial instability in rural areas and to assess the availability of community…
Improving Employability via Physical Crowdsourced Tasks
The project: Digital technologies that support employment — like LinkedIn and Massive Open Online Courses — are primarily used by individuals with higher education levels. According to a 2015 Pew Research report, American job seekers with lower educational attainment would benefit the most from using digital tools to support their employment endeavors. To understand opportunities…
The systemic effects of SNAP benefit cuts on Washtenaw County poverty alleviation institutions
The project: This case study of Washtenaw County examines the impact of the 2017 changes to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Michigan’s new work requirement and time limit for receiving SNAP benefits rolled out in January 2017 meant 3,346 people in Washtenaw County could potentially lose their food assistance. Washtenaw County has one…
Does the Earned Income Tax Credit Reduce Housing Instability?
The project: Stable housing is very important as it relates to economic, physical, and emotional well-being. However, as housing affordability has declined in the past 15 years, housing has become more unstable, which impacts the housing and living arrangements of low-income families. Housing vouchers help improve housing outcomes, but only 24% of 19 million eligible…
Transportation Insecurity: Developing a Measure to Capture an Understudied Dimension of Poverty
The project: A lack of reliable transportation can exacerbate symptoms of poverty and in some cases even cause poverty by making it difficult to secure employment or access services. Yet transportation is often overlooked as a dimension of poverty. Currently, mobility is measured by single factors like car ownership or neighborhood accessibility. Creating a new…
Poverty Solutions and the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center (Detroit URC) partner on an annual grant funding opportunity for collaborations between academic researchers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint campuses, and community-based partners throughout the State of Michigan.
Poverty Solutions and the Center for Social Solutions partner to support action-based research aimed at ending systemic and institutional racism. Successful action-based research projects cut across disciplines, and address challenges such as systemic oppression, organizational exclusion, institutional discrimination, neglectful policy, and violence against the minds, bodies, and cultures of people of color.
This is an open grant funding opportunity for faculty at University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses to pursue research projects focused on strategies to address poverty with effective, real-world solutions. Proposals are reviewed on a rolling basis.