Building Better Connections
By Zach Markovits, Jen Tolentino, and Sophie Bergmann
Government moves at the speed of trust — and yet, public trust in government has declined dramatically since the 1960s. According to the Pew Research Center, only 22% of Americans trust government leaders in Washington to do the right thing “most of the time.”
The decline in trust is consistent across race and ethnicity. However, Black and Hispanic Americans express even less trust in the US government than their white counterparts, for good reason: Throughout our entire history as a nation, federal policies and practices have led to more oppression and less opportunity for Black, Latino and Indigenous Americans.
There’s no quick or easy fix for rebuilding trust. Residents need to feel their government consistently acts with competence and good faith — and that only happens with a sustained effort over a long period of time. Government leaders at every level — federal and local alike — must take on high-profile, life-or-death issues like racial equity, criminal justice, and public health crises while at the same time improving even seemingly ordinary, everyday interactions between people and government. These interactions are an opportunity to generate mutual trust and goodwill through productive and positive experiences. Rebuilding strong relationships begins with breaking down the bureaucracy that stands between public services and the public they seek to serve.
Cities in the What Works Cities (WWC) Economic Mobility Initiative, led by Results for America, set out to improve economic outcomes for residents through data- and community-driven programs. Along the way, many of them found ways to improve interactions with residents.
At the heart of all their stories is a single theme: Simplicity. “You have to take a machete to red tape,” says Kate May, Chief Performance Officer for the City of Rochester, NY. “Make it as easy as possible for people to access benefits and trust the community to know who those benefits are for.” May’s experience working with low-income residents to save a portion of their federal tax credits underscores a critical point for governments who want to build public trust: As in any relationship, trust is a two-way street.
Below, we’ll take a closer look at three examples of local jurisdictions making it easier for residents to work with them, including:
- New Orleans, LA: Reducing the paperwork burden for young people applying for internships
- Lansing, MI: Bringing multiple financial empowerment programs under a single roof, giving residents a “one stop shop”
- Newark, NJ: Building an easy-to-use affordable housing portal to help residents find good housing options
New Orleans, LA: Less paperwork. More work experience.
YouthForce NOLA, a nonprofit collaboration that provides New Orleans students with the skills, connections and confidence they need to pursue high-wage careers, made it easier for young people to participate in quality internships by streamlining a burdensome application process.
Previously, documentation requirements for internship programs included ID, work permit, proof of residency, proof of guardianship, signed forms, and more. The volume and overlap of documents was confusing, and disproportionately difficult for young people who identify as non-binary, are English language learners, or are experiencing homelessness.
“Young people living with disruption need our support — and a burdensome documentation process punishes them for that very disruption. Some of our youth are living with a family member or friend not listed on their birth certificate, while others lost documents due to a major hurricane or other traumatic events, such as house fires,” says Cate Swinburn, co-founder and president of YouthForce NOLA. “We must build systems that enable our young people to thrive; this is one key step in that effort.”
The New Orleans project team, which included representatives from the City of New Orleans as well as YouthForce NOLA, worked with the Behavioral Insights Team (BIT) to streamline and simplify the process for proving New Orleans residency. One of the most transformational shifts was working with the school district — essentially, if a student is enrolled in a New Orleans public school, that’s sufficient proof of residency.
“Proof of residency is a funding source requirement,” says Melissa Schigoda, Director of the Office of Performance & Accountability for the City of New Orleans. “The solution to use schools to confirm residency saves a lot of time and effort for young people and the YouthForce staff, while allowing us to remain compliant.”
After the switch, 90% of students proved residency through their schools, and 100% of work permits were processed virtually.
The changes dramatically increased retention. Between 2017 and 2020, only 63–76% of youth accepted into the program stayed on for their internships. After streamlining the documentation procedures, retention rose to 96.7 percent last spring.
Moving forward, the City of New Orleans is exploring even more opportunities to reduce the documentation burden on the young people it seeks to serve, including no-fee credit cards that can be used to pay interns through direct cash transfers, thus eliminating the need for a bank account to deposit payment.
Lansing, MI: A single point of contact for a breadth of financial services
Lansing is a leader in the Financial Empowerment space. Prior to the WWC Economic Mobility Initiative, the City offered a range of services, such as a children’s savings account opened at Kindergarten, postsecondary tuition assistance, and ongoing financial counseling for adults. All these programs were individually strong, but they weren’t integrated. That made the breadth of services less intuitive for residents to navigate, which meant residents left money on the table.
“Lansing was programs-rich and systems-poor,” says Amber Paxton, Director of the Office of Financial Empowerment. Partners did their best to collaborate, but they did not offer one, easy-to-access, public-facing continuum of services.
The first step Lansing partners took was to re-brand the partnership, coming together under a single, public-facing identity: BOLD Lansing. BOLD Lansing provided residents a single email address and phone number, thus increasing the potential for referrals between programs. Through a new governance structure, also developed during the pilot, BOLD Lansing is poised to grow into a true “one-stop shop” for residents, who can start saving early, build strong savings habits, and make the most of the funds they set aside through financial counseling.
The pilot took the first step towards a fully unified set of services by bringing together two of the BOLD Lansing partners: Lansing Promise, which provides tuition assistance for all qualified residents within the Lansing School District, and the city’s Financial Empowerment Center (FEC). “College students are at such a critical transition point in their lives,” says Paxton. “It’s a really important moment to build good financial habits.”
Historically, the FEC has had very few clients under the age of 24 years old. The pilot started to change that by creating trusted referral pathways; Lansing Promise staff were already well known by students, so channeling outreach through them went a long way in getting on students’ radar. Students reported 50% greater brand awareness of BOLD Lansing following the rebranding and referral push. “This pilot really demonstrates how important it is to come together as one entity, both for recruitment and referrals,” says Paxton.
The pilot also showed the value of small incentives: A $10 Amazon gift card encouraged 191 Promise scholars to complete a financial mindsets and habits survey, the results of which provide invaluable insights for financial counseling for these students. Ongoing incentives promoted further participation: 40 Promise scholars attended over 100 sessions at the Financial Empowerment Center, saving $3,800 during the pilot period and earning an additional $3,790 in incentives.
With hundreds of Lansing School District students turning 18 each year, and tens of thousands of Michigan State University students just down the road, the lessons learned for integrating the FEC with postsecondary programs has incredible potential for impact. And as other partners within BOLD Lansing collaborate more deeply and effectively, Lansing residents will get even more value from the already-strong programming in the city.
“BOLD Lansing is a generational solution to a generational issue,” says Lansing Mayor Andy Schor. “It is my hope that our city will become a model for others.”
Newark, NJ: A user-friendly portal for affordable housing
Housing is a core component of financial stability and general well-being — and an issue where local governments are well positioned to advocate for their residents.
Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark has committed to “safe, decent, and affordable” housing in Newark. Newark’s work in the WWC Economic Mobility Initiative supported that priority through a multipronged approach, including launching a landlord registration campaign to better enforce rent control and existing renter protections; planning for expansion of the City’s Office of Tenant Legal Services to provide legal representation to residents facing eviction; and building an affordable housing portal to help residents find and secure good housing options.
Newark knew that just building the portal wasn’t enough. They needed to make it easy to use, and valuable for the intended audience. Newark used BIT’s EAST framework (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely) to make sure the portal was easy for people to use. They worked with community-based organizations (CBOs) to test the portal with low-income residents, capturing feedback along the way. On the final, beta version of the portal, most users were able to find a good affordable housing option in only 15 minutes.
“Good” was defined by users themselves. “We can’t define for someone else what constitutes a good housing option,” says Jerrah Crowder, Manager of the City’s Office of Affordability and Sustainable Housing. “People know what neighborhoods they want to live in — neighborhoods that feel safe, that are close to their schools, jobs, and families.”
The portal is set for a March 2022 full launch, where residents will be able to perform comprehensive and exhaustive searches, all while being assisted by the city and the CBOs eager to use this as a tool to help the City’s most vulnerable residents.
The value of simplicity
Bureaucratic red tape isn’t a harmless quirk of government — it’s a barrier between public services and the public. Breaking down that barrier starts by making every touchpoint between a city and its residents as simple and intuitive as possible, whether it’s an application process, a referral network, or a digital tool.
“You have to meet people where they are,” says May. “Lift every restriction you can.”
In the walls that stand between governments and the residents they serve, every brick dismantled can be used to build a pathway. Local governments have the proximity, visibility, and values-driven leadership it takes to build stronger working relationships with communities, and in doing so, begin to repair trust between elected leaders and the people they serve.
For more proven strategies to improve economic mobility for residents, visit our Economic Mobility Catalog.
Zach Markovits is Vice President and Local Practice Lead at Results for America
Jen Tolentino is a Director of Local Practice at Results for America
Sophie Bergmann is a Manager at Results for America
