By Faith Talamantez
Obstacles facing those who are impoverished persist because so many Americans have a flawed understanding of poverty and what causes it, and need to hear directly from individuals affected, a UC Santa Barbara audience has heard.
“[Historically], people rarely talked to people in poverty,” said Greg Kaufmann, chief adviser for storytelling and narrative for the small non-profit EPIC, or Ending Poverty in California.
Ending Poverty in California’s president Devon Gray, left, and Greg Kaufmann, EPIC’s chief adviser for storytelling and narrative, at a recent UCSB panel. Photo by Christoffer Bovbjerg
Kaufmann made the remarks on a recent panel that discussed EPIC’s current listening tour across America. Fellow panelists were the group’s president Devon Gray, and History Department professor Alice O’Connor, director of UCSB’s Blum Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy.
“We are a state that has so much going for it,” said Gray, noting the immense disparities in wealth throughout California.
EPIC gets its name from a campaign with the same title that was led in 1934 by writer and political activist Upton Sinclair. As O’Connor explained, Sinclair was a socialist and faced much backlash when he became the Democratic nominee for governor in California. His original ideas for abolishing poverty are what now inspire the current EPIC drive to restart his grassroots movement in a modern capacity.
EPIC has three main goals when it comes to addressing poverty in California, Gray said. It first starts with challenges to government policies on housing, and building safety nets for people in poverty. Second, it is important to empower people in poverty politically, and encourage them to use the resources available to them. And the third way that EPIC addresses poverty is by working to change the narrative surrounding poverty, and affected communities.
History professor Alice O’Connor, director of UCSB’s Blum Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy, discusses the 2023 documentary Poverty & Power .
As EPIC’s chief adviser for storytelling and narrative, Kaufmann said it is crucial to hear the stories of poverty directly from the people who are in poverty, rather than from general statistics or lawmakers. In the 2023 documentary Poverty & Power, which covered EPIC’s listening sessions across California, filmmaker Jacob Kornbluth captured many of the stories that have influenced EPIC’s work. Clips from the film were shared over the course of the panel, showing those on the listening tour sharing their stories. One clip showed EPIC’s Devon Gray speaking to politicians in Sacramento about poverty policies.
Kaufmann stressed the need to generate a new narrative— one that is focused on investing in everyone, rather than just an exceptional few cases. Even further, EPIC wants to abandon stigmas such as those that claim people in poverty are just lazy, or need to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” given that these incorrect stereotypes have caused such harm to those in need.
Talking directly to people in need has revealed a whole world of information that then allows EPIC to communicate what the day-to-day reality looks like for people who are trying to get aid from the government, and how challenging that can be.
Many people struggle to get through the complicated forms required to access aid and feel as though resources are inaccessible to them, the audience was told. The listening tour also showed EPIC that people in poverty from different counties share similar obstacles to housing and finding jobs, indicating that improving various policies to help people in need can be applied across the state, not just in particular communities.
To date, EPIC has gone to 20 counties spanning from San Diego all the way up through Oregon to Washington state, and its listening tour still continues. These conversations have helped inform EPIC as to what solutions can be. One example, Gray explained, is how people lose their benefits after beginning to earn slightly more, which then pushes them back into poverty. It would be helpful to eliminate that barrier, and allow benefits to gradually lessen, rather than disappearing entirely, he said.
EPIC’s founder Michael Tubbs, as seen in the 2023 film Poverty & Power directed by Jacob Kornbluth , which documents the group’s listening sessions on poverty across California.
With all the information and ideas generated at these listening tours, EPIC plans to propose new bills in California, help implement bills that have already been passed, and build local pilot programs that directly target those in poverty. Already, EPIC has supported bills such as ACA 10 “Housing as a human right” which aims to make housing a right for all Californians. Kauffmann stressed the importance of starting at the community level, and connecting affected communities with politicians, non-profit organizers, as well as universities and academics.
“That’s a real way to build power— to stay connected,” Kauffmann said.
Faith Talamantez is a third year UCSB student majoring in Writing and Literature. She is a Web and Social Media intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.