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Dear friends,
It has been an exciting month, and we are so grateful to announce that the Concord City Council awarded Monument Impact $1.5 million in American Recovery Plan (ARP) funds to launch Contra Costa County’s first Guaranteed Basic Income pilot program for 120 low-income families in Concord with children of ages 12 and under. These supplemental payments will provide families with additional resources to make ends meet–whether that be paying for rent, bills, food, car repairs, school supplies, or any other urgent needs.
This was a very competitive process, and our thanks goes to the hard work of staff on our grant application, along with community members who raised their voices to champion this pilot and support their neighbors. We are also grateful to the Concord City Council for supporting this important pilot through ARP and recognizing how this will help impacted community members recover from the pandemic. We also thank the Latino Community Foundation for providing Monument Impact with the resources to advocate for our Latinx community throughout this process.
We are still in the early planning stages for this pilot and will dedicate the next few months to finalizing a contract with the City, hiring staff, developing the process for community members to apply for funds, and preparing the complex back-end program that will allow Monument Impact to launch the application, select participants, and distribute their monthly payments.
Monument Impact was also recently featured on Univision 14 and Telemundo to share information about this upcoming program with our Spanish-speaking neighbors. Keep an eye out for our email updates, and follow us on social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) for the latest.
March ends on another important note. On March 31, we honor Cesar Chavez, who was dedicated to advocating for civil rights, Latinx and farm labor rights. We are continually inspired by Cesar Chavez and his legacy and keep community organizing centered at the core of Monument Impact’s work. While his mobilization efforts were strongest in years past, protections for farmworkers and other laborers are still urgently needed today.
At Monument Impact, we champion stronger tenant protections, rent stabilization, tenant organizing and educational workshops, and job training programs so that our community grows in its resilience against economic challenges and unfair work environments and landlords who take advantage of members of our community who are undocumented, are still learning English, or who may be unaware of their rights. And ultimately, we aim to build people-first communities where everyone, regardless of where they come from or how much money they have, is able to find belonging, have safe, stable jobs and homes, and nourish their health and well-being.
In community,
Judith Ortiz, Executive Director
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