by Jonathan Reiss
March 22, 2023. Spanish moss hung in clumps from olden oaks around the student center at Seminole State College’s Sanford/Lake Mary campus. It was 4 p.m., and the sun broke through the canopy in powerful slants, aided by the manmade carving of a parking lot and road below. A steady shush settled over the campus, courtesy of the vehicles cruising along nearby US17, Ronald Reagan Boulevard, and SR417. Students milled, waiting for a LYNX bus in small groups and quiet singles. Somewhere not too far away, laughter rang out, hardly an unwelcome sound.
On entering the student center, there is air-conditioning aplenty, and the space somehow manages to be neither too bright nor too dim. Something is imposing and comfortable about the place, gently authoritarian like a parent. In front and center is an information hub with helpful attendants. On the right is a resource center with signage advertising programs like Destination Graduation. A bookstore lurks to the left, and hidden behind the ample game room beside it is a closed Starbucks. Tonight, we’re passing by the café for tea over coffee, not so late on our way to a very important date to “Help ALICE in Wonderland Prosper.”
The gurgle of overlapping conversations and pleasing food aromas greeted guests as they entered the room. They were educators, parents, students, policymakers, business and industry leaders, and community collaborators—all motivated to improve the region they loved. Everyone is an expert, here to put their heads together over local data, hash out ideas, speculate plans, and envision a better future. The recurring theme is collaboration, an ouroboros of progress, continuously feeding into itself, of itself.
Jan Lloyd, Associate VP for Student Development at Seminole State College, kicked off the night and presented herself with a poise fitting a Ph.D. After going through the agenda and warming up the room, she introduced Ray Larsen, Senior VP of Strategic Impact and Community Engagement at Heart of Florida United Way, who, in turn, introduced us to ALICE.
ALICE: Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. In short, families or households that don’t own property or other assets to fall back upon in emergencies; lack the credentials or worker power to earn more at their job and are perhaps working 2-3 of those jobs to survive in Central Florida. These are families above the federal poverty line yet are a single bad day away from being thrown over a fiscal cliff. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, these are people all around us, people we not too long ago may have referred to as “essential workers.”
One could almost visibly see who in the room began to realize that they were ALICE and began grappling with that unfamiliar notion. Veterans grimly nodded along. ALICE’s precarious instability was a topical point, which led to information about upcoming healthcare changes. Apparently, due to some pandemic-era changes ending over the coming year, many who had enrolled in Medicaid will be removed from coverage. Medicaid unwinding will begin with those using the program the least and continue to others no longer qualifying. [Keep an eye out for envelopes with a yellow stripe in the mail, and make sure to apply and update your address and other information online as soon as possible.] Here is one of those events that can sink a family; insurance can be a bucket for bailing water following an emergency when millions of Americans are already drowning in medical debt every day.
After this first acquaintance with ALICE, participants utilized the wisdom in the room while looking over the workforce, education, and economic data relating to Seminole County. Table discussions filled the room as participants synergized the information they received from Ray with the data provided in front of them. Charts, tables, and fact points relating to ALICE, Seminole County demographics, local literacy rates, regional attainment rates, recent Seminole State College enrollment numbers, projected job and industry growth over the next few years, local median wages, and a survivability budget filled the page and boggled the mind. As particular data points struck individuals, they recorded their realizations on their phones and a moment later popped projected onto a screen at the front of the room—which often spurred another table’s discussion further.
Afterward, the room discussed collectively the epiphanies recorded and concluded that the median wage did not support the survivability budget, housing was a problem spiraling out of control and yet felt tangentially relevant, and the pandemic has had outsized effects on our society in unpredictable ways. One of the fastest observations made early in the pandemic was that workers with college degrees were incredibly economically insulated compared to those without degrees (an effect observed and paralleled following the 2008 financial crisis). An unfortunate trademark of ALICE workers is that they lack credentials. Maybe they have some college experience but no degree, only student loans and a bad taste in their mouth to show for it.
There are many ways to aid these families but upliftED believes that making education after high school a reality for everyone is the surest and fastest path of upward mobility and economic security for these folks. Our measurable goal, aligned with Lumina Foundation, is for 60% of Central Floridians to have a high-quality degree or credential by 2025. The state anticipates that our economy will require this level of skilled workers to support its growth by 2030, passing legislation like “SAIL to 60” and starting initiatives like GetThereFL. It might be easy to believe that the Government Doesn’t Care About You, but when its interests align with yours, it can be like piggybacking a Cessna rather than kicking Converse.
Seminole County is thankfully well poised to meet its attainment goal, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still jobs that need filling. How do you funnel the people who need better jobs into those positions that need filling? Education may be the connective glue, but there’s still a tricky wicket to navigate. Here is where partnerships between local businesses and colleges can be vital. When industries can anticipate their needs with data and communicate those needs to institutions, places of learning can meet employer needs by effectively feeding brains and brawn into those businesses. Both players have ground-level views of the local area and often data to back it up. Those perspectives are valuable but are naturally too narrow by themselves. Again collaboration becomes necessary to understand what is happening in a locality and to affect change.
Next on the ticket, Jan moderated a panel discussion that proved thought-provoking. Three local leaders, Nina Yon, President and CEO of The Sharing Center; Nilda Blanco, VP of Service Delivery at CareerSource Central Florida; and Shawn Gard-Harrold, Assistant Superintendent of ePathways at Seminole County Public Schools, discussed how partnerships benefit not only their institution but the county as a whole. Cooperation between the institutions and others had provided tangible results for ALICE families in the county, including a success story regarding a student struggling to make their bus to class. The Sharing Center, in this case, had stepped up and contributed a bicycle for the student so they could arrive at Seminole State College on time for classes. CareerSource Central Florida works daily with ALICE families to connect them with training before pairing them with a job—an ongoing partnership bridging businesses and educational institutions to provide direct service to ALICE.
Socioeconomically, Seminole County holds a somewhat unique position within the state. As of 2021, 57% of residents have a high-quality degree or credential, ranked 3rd in educational attainment across the state behind Alachua (59.1%) and Leon (57.1%) counties. Interestingly, Seminole’s percentage leans more heavily on younger (25-34 years old) rather than elder (<64) adults within the county, an uncommon phenomenon outside counties boasting a large university or significant metropolitan area within its borders. What does it mean when a small, quiet county priding itself on natural ecology and a cute downtown has a high population of educated adults starting careers, families, and homes but without the diversity of industries in a large city or an academic ivory tower planted in some sprawling ivy-covered university to employ them? Of course, Orlando isn’t too far away, but that doesn’t mean the county doesn’t need specialized workers operating within its borders. Some of Seminole’s largest industries are its’ fastest growing, like Health Care & Social Assistance, with more than 500 projected job growths over the next few years, positions almost entirely dependent on highly qualified (read “have-a-degree”) individuals. So we see: many people need better jobs, and the area has better jobs it needs people for, and the state observes this across 67 counties and gets the picture: more (Central) Floridians need some education after high school, sometimes as little as mere weeks of lessons.
What if you could look at a community street by street, with filters for income, education, crime, literacy, and more? Do you sense a leading question? Enter Andres Florez, Chief Data Officer at Polis Institute, with the Neighborhood Opportunity Index in hand. Wrapping up the evening’s event was a presentation on a new publicly available data tool that seeks to give high-level detail to community practitioners so they can work as efficiently as possible within neighborhoods. As the shock subsided and awe crept in, questions began to pepper the air. How recent is the data? From 2021. Will it be updated? Eventually. What kind of sources? U.S. Census data, among others. What’s the site again? The tool is available at GrowOpportunity.org. Can you show me that thing you just did again?
6 p.m. arrived sooner than expected, with Jan swooping in at the end of Andres’ presentation to close the evening. Guests stood, grabbing final sandwiches and sweets from the spread as they shared business cards and pleasantries. Overheard could be promises of e-introductions, phone calls, business lunches, and general goodwill and wonder among such passionate people. The room slowly cleared with thoughtful goodbyes stretched to a relaxed yet invigorated conclusion. As air conditioning gave way at the barrier of metal and glass doors, birds were chirping, and a LYNX bus sat quietly chugging in front of the student center, letting out a resigned belch before it shifted into gear and began to pull away. The slant of the sunlight shifted a measure of degrees over the two hours and now lay with much too much grace over the parking lot. One could almost hear Werner Herzog muttering about the approach of the magic hour. As car doors shut across the lot, laughter rang out again across the campus, this time clearly shared as a group.
Acknowledgments and Great Thanks to:
Earnest Alston, Jr.
Gina Soloman
Jan Lloyd
Melissa Rosa-Alvarez
Nicola Williams
Robin Thorne
Thomas Hoke
We’d also like to thank:
Seminole State College, CareerSource Central Florida, Seminole County Public Schools, The Sharing Center, Polis Institute, Central Florida Education Ecosystem Database (CFEED), Heavenly Tasties, and upliftED’s backbone organization, Heart of Florida United Way
If you’d like to work to help ALICE families in Central Florida, or even just get the latest updates on what upliftED is doing in Central Florida, send us a message.