One in five people live below the poverty line in Yolo County. Poverty alleviation programs can exert a powerful impact on health, welfare and development, particularly for children. Accordingly, the Center for Regional Change partners with Yolo county Health and Human Services to design and evaluate the Yolo Basic Income Program (YoBI), structured to serve families with children under the age of six who are experiencing homelessness and enrolled in the CalWORKs program. The YoBI program enrolled all qualifying families from the CalWorks Housing Support Program in 2022. Families receive traditional case management support and benefits through the CalWORKS program. The pilot provides the additional benefit of basic income support payments that will put the total income of these families above the California Poverty Measure for a full two years.
Yolo County Supervisors approved the program in 2021. The Yolo County Health and Human Services (HHS) Department manages program implementation, thereby leveraging existing staffing and resources and minimizing overhead costs. The UC Davis Center for Regional Change (CRC) leads a team of interdisciplinary researchers to develop methodology for identifying indicators and evaluating outcomes using quantitative data from local, state, and federal sources and qualitative data from surveys, interviews, and focus groups. The implementation and evaluation team also includes community partners such as Yolo County Children’s Alliance (YCCA), Yolo Food Bank, and Yolo First 5. Community partners are involved in program design and implementation, as well as research methodology development, data collection, and analysis and interpretation. Most importantly, the implementation and evaluation team includes a steering committee made up of families that have met the criteria for the target study group empowered to shape the program and frame the findings and recommendations.
Reports/Presentations
- Yolo County Basic Income Program Preliminary Data Report II_Kagawa
- Yolo County Basic Income Program: Preliminary Data Report III Daniel Choe
- Yolo County Basic Income Program: Baseline Participant Interview Results
- Yolo County Basic Income Program: Year 1 Participant Interview Results
Media Resources
Sacramento Bee: How cash payments are helping Yolo County families reduce depression and improve childhoods
Sacramento Bee: Yolo County program gave cash payments to families. Here’s what worked — and what didn’t
Sacramento Bee: Her daughter was killed, her son was taken away. This new Yolo program found her a new home
Community Development Students Impact Policy as Part of Class
Supervisors Approve Agreement with UC Davis to Study Yolo Basic Income Program
Press Release: Yolo County Basic Income Program Encourages Growth and Self-Determination for Vulnerable Families
Davis Vanguard: Yolo County Launches Basic Income Program
Sacramento Business Journal: Yolo County Launches Basic Income Pilot for Housing Insecure Families with Young Children
The California Aggie: ‘Break the cycle of generational poverty’: Yolo County begins allocating basic income to families in poverty