Episode 10: Advancing Equity and Opportunity Through Community Leadership with State Representative Corey Paris

This week on Rooted in Impact, host Ashley Gaudiano interviews State Rep. Corey Paris to discuss leading with purpose in public service, nonprofit work, and advocacy.

Representative Paris explains how he weaves equity, opportunity, and community impact into his professional and governmental roles. The conversation delves into persistent systemic barriers affecting families and children, and explores how collaborative, long-term solutions can overcome these challenges. Through examples of cross-sector partnerships and community-centered leadership, the discussion illustrates how meaningful change results from coordinated efforts between people and institutions.

Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of how leadership rooted in service and equity drives lasting impact, and how both individuals and organizations can help build more stable, opportunity-rich communities for everyone.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome back to Rooted in Impact, a United Way of Coastal and Western Connecticut podcast. I'm your host, Ashley Gadiano. Today I'm joined by Corey Paris, State Rep, House Chair of the Committee on Children, and Chief Impact Officer at Person to Person, and also somebody that I consider a good friend. Corey's work spans public service, community activism, and nonprofit leadership, all with a focus on equity, opportunity, and transforming impact for families across our region. Today we'll talk a little bit about how Corey approaches leadership in both nonprofit and political spaces, how he works to advance opportunity for children, and the role of collaboration in addressing these big picture systems changes that we talk so often about. So, Corey, thank you so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Ashley, thank you. I appreciate you having me on. I think that there are probably hundreds of other people that you could have brought on that would have been a heck of a lot better, but I appreciate to share the space with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

I don't know about that. Um, you're up there at the top of my list. So glad that we can do this. Um, we will jump right in, Corey. Can you just start with sharing a bit about your journey into public service and nonprofit leadership? Because it's really unique to have both of those lenses.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Yeah, it is. And also very tiring, I'll tell you that. Uh I hear you. Which I know that you know, uh, I know that you know on a very personal level as well. You know, my journey into public service really started with proximity to need. And so growing up in a family where the expectation was that we need to give back, we need to commit ourselves to public service and solving some of the world's greatest challenges was just a real driving force. And and growing up in that kind of environment and then later working in communities across um across Connecticut, I saw firsthand how poverty and affordability challenges shapes uh people's lives in real time. And that's not in theory, but it in but in whether a family can put food on the table or afford childcare or stay in their home, um, those are all issues that became pertinent to me because of the intersectionality of all of those challenges. And so that led me into nonprofit work where I could be closer to the solution. Um, and at person to person, as chief philanthropy and strategy officer, and and uh through initiatives like, you know, our most recent event, Rising Together, which brings all of these communities together to raise money for these efforts so that we can solve food insecurity. Uh, I've had the firsthand opportunity to help mobilize resources and bring people together to meet urgent needs while also thinking about the long-term change. Um, and I think on the flip side of that, public service has always felt like a natural extension of that. So if nonprofit work allows me to respond, um, government allows me to scale solutions. And I wanted to be in a position where we are, where we are not just helping people survive, but actually changing the systems that keep people struggling in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Absolutely. I mean, we talk a lot about that at United Way, that there is a need to do both, right? The basic needs of today and the long-term solutions for tomorrow so that people don't end up needing um support to put food on the table or you know, facing eviction. Why from where you stand, Corey, are both of those, why do they have to go hand in hand? Why do we need to do both the today and the tomorrow work?

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Well, I think we have to do the both today and tomorrow work because someone who doesn't have that problem today will be a victim of these challenges tomorrow. Um, and if that were not the case, then we would not have an issue with poverty in our country. We would not have an issue with the affordability crisis. I I have been saying for years uh to members of my own party, which has, you know, kind of been a contentious conversation to have around affordability, that $100,000 is not a lot of money. Now, for many people who have experienced a six-figure lifestyle uh in years past under different presidential administrations, under a different economy, it that may land very differently. But in this day and age where the cost of college has increased nearly 3,000% over the last uh 30 to 40 years, it is almost impossible to buy a home. Even if you uh on paper look like you can afford a home, you can't get out of the vicious cycle of renting. And the affordability uh piece of trying to find a home that is affordable and and uh cost neutral is almost impossible to find. And then you, you know, you encompass that with child care challenges, uh transportation challenges, food, and the rising cost of that. Um, it just makes it very difficult. So today and tomorrow are always a top of mind because um we're always gonna have someone tomorrow that needs something that necessarily did not need that help or those resources today.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Absolutely. I want to go back to what you just said about $100,000 not being a lot of money, right? Because we live in Alistata, right? That's a limited income-constrained employee data. I know you are super familiar with that. But when we go around and we say a survival budget, right? Just being able to survive with bare, bare minimum of housing and food and utilities and child care and health care for a family of four with you know two kids, two adults is $140,000, $150,000. That is just survival. And people's eyes sometimes get really big and go, that's a huge figure. But it's not, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

You know, you see that. So can you talk a little bit about maybe what you're doing or thinking about to try and frame out affordability and even address the affordability crisis?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Well, last year, I mean, poverty is becoming uh top of mind for me in a number of ways. And so last year there was a bill that I had championed and wanted to put together a task force of bringing together the United Ways and the Connecticut projects and the P2Ps and the you know children's learning centers of the world to talk about uh child care in real time. Or excuse me, not child care, but poverty in real time.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

No, we did talk about child care, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yes, we definitely did. Thank you. But to talk about uh the overarching issue of poverty in real time is super important because that allows for us to come to the table with all of these different sectors um and industries saying, this is how this is affecting us, this is how it will affect you in a separate, in a completely separate industry. This is what we need to do to fix it. Because what I want to do from this task force is to build out a blueprint for how we move Connecticut families from being impoverished to being uh sustainable and and um and focused and in a better, more stable environment in the future. And this is gonna take years for us to put together this plan, but the plan has to start. So to put together a task force, you know, we've got to write the bill language, we've got to set all of the appointments, we've got to then get it passed to the floor. And it dived last year in the Senate because there was a senator who felt uh passionate about the fact that we had mentioned and called out the idea around universal basic income to be explored through this task force, which is really unfortunate because there are so many conservative and Republican states that are actually piloting universal basic income uh in certain towns and cities in their states for folks. And so it's not a democratic belief. It's not a Republican belief, it's just a basic human needs belief. And so I'm hoping that at some point we can get to this space where we have real conversations about how we solve poverty in real time. We're not there yet, but I know that that is certainly something that I'm doing uh with colleagues so that we can help to address these challenges in the future.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I think, you know, what we see often um both at the nonprofit level and at the kind of policy-making governmental level is that people are trying to chip away at whether you're thinking about it as poverty or affordability, right? People are are chipping away at that, but they're chipping away at that often in silos to no fault of their own, right? Either because that is the system that's been set up or because that is the mission of your nonprofit and you should be laser focused on an issue. So um, you know what we're gonna do, we're gonna take a quick break right here. Um, we've covered a lot in the first chunk of this segment, and when we return, we'll continue our conversation here on Rooted in Impact.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Across coastal and western Connecticut, families are working hard every day to build stable, healthy lives, but for many, the path to financial security isn't always clear. That's where United Way Coastal and Western Connecticut comes in. In partnership with the community, United Way is addressing critical needs and creating equitable pathways to well-being, from access to child care and food to financial education and workforce support. Because when individuals have the tools to succeed, entire communities grow stronger. Serving 27 communities across Fairfield and Southern Litchfield counties, United Way is working toward a future where every person is healthy, safe, and economically secure. This is more than a vision. It's a shared commitment. To learn more or get involved, visit UnitedWayCWC.org.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

So I guess what I want to dig into just for a second, Corey, is how kind of intersectional the issues are, right? And how we often find ourselves um working and operating in silos, right? A team or a coalition focused on food security, a team or a coalition focused on fighting housing-related issues. And we see that within the way government is set up and the way that nonprofits are set up to no fault of anybody's. It's just how it is right now. How does a task force or somebody like you think about bringing those things together to more holistically tackle poverty and affordability?

SPEAKER_01 10:26

I think that's a real cultural issue for us as a state that we have not been able to solve. And that issue, to name that, that issue is that we all like to work in silos. You know, it's it's each municipality and city and town that wants to do their own thing because they believe that they do it right, they do it better than anyone else. And that that I think trickles down to government or trickles up to government rather on the state level, but then also trickles down to local nonprofit communities. So, you know, it's kind of like, well, P2P does this really well, but someone else can't do the same uh work in a different way or maybe in the same way. Um and that's just not true. I think we all need the resources that each one of us hold in order to actually solve the problem. And I think that's where we're getting in the way uh and losing sight around. And so for me, with the intersectionality of this issue, I mean, you think about student loans, for example, you you take out the student loan to go to college, you graduate from college, you know, have this loan balance against your debt to income ratio. And then you're going off to, you know, get a car, which you need a car in the state of Connecticut to get back and forth to work. Um, and then once you get the car, well, that's determined by the credit score, which is being impacted by the debt to income ratio. Then you can't, then your your car insurance is impacted by that because they look at your uh your credit score, which is a whole nother issue, and then you can't rent at home and then you can't. I mean, it's just in the cycle. That's right. But that shows the intersectionality of that one issue. Uh, and so imagine that on a larger scale with food insecurity. I mean, we're buying food at very high prices. I know people who are spending two to three hundred dollars. I heck, we're doing it at grocery stores and we feel like we come home with nothing. And then, you know, fresh produce and fruit and vegetables, they don't last very long. They go uh, they go badly very quickly. And so um it's all of these different challenges that we see in all of these spaces that if we had folks in the student loan space, talking to folks in the housing space, talking to folks in the food security space, you know, we could solve a lot of challenges for people to help them reach that affordability piece, which is why I love person to person, because person to person has one of six financial opportunity centers in the entire state of Connecticut. So not only are we bringing these folks in as clients to help give them housing assistance, to help, you know, provide them with food um necessities, but then we're also building real budgets and helping them to close in on their debt, um, their debt gap so that they can go off to be more stable participants in the overall global economy. And that is something that a lot of organizations have not done, but certainly something we need to step in to do as a state to help uh build policies uh that will help to uh provide more resources and a better blueprint for folks in these spaces.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Yeah, that's a great example of how uh there's a through line, right, from kind of start to finish, or at least start to to address crisis into beginning to address stabilization in order to even move towards opportunity. Um are there examples like that, Corey, at the state level, right, from the policy perspective, that you feel like have made a really measurable difference in the lives of families? Something that either has been passed before that you're really proud of, or something you're working on this this uh session that you think, man, that's that's the thing that's gonna make the difference in the lives of some families this year.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Well, you know, this year we've really been tackling uh how to address a ton of systemic issues through DCF. Um, and we have a lot of foster families out here in Connecticut who uh get paid once a month. Sometimes they get paid late, some other times they get paid on time to take care of a child, but their the overall rate uh on a yearly basis is $10,000 to $12,000 that they're receiving to take care of a foster child. Uh for grandparents in our state or fictive kin, it's much lower. It's about a $2,200 ceiling that they have each year to take care of a child. And that has not changed since 2008. So for me, I see a big issue for us in terms of our foster care system. These are our kids. We have to be able to step in and help families provide for these kids, care for them. And then we also have to provide the kids with uh, you know, a pathway outside uh of the system once they age out. And so this is a convoluted system that at times is just it's such a big agency that there's so many pieces to tackle that we're not able to tackle every piece within this agency as quickly as we want. But we have to do it. And so for me, I think that that is a major piece to addressing affordability for a smaller constituency of people, but a constituency of people that, for example, they're very afraid to accept any help from DCF to take care of these kids because then they'll be pushed out of the benefits cliff with Medicaid and Medicare and SNAP benefits or TANF. And so it's like solving all of these other challenges, but we have to address it now because there are so many people in need uh around these issues.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

Yeah, absolutely. I just want to um to offer a quick explanation on benefits cliffs. I don't know, Corey, if you want to do the 30 seconds on benefits cliffs, but I don't want to assume that everybody knows what that actually means.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

No, I think uh I think United Way probably is a much better source than Corey Paris.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Right. So just for the super abbreviated version for folks who are listening, sometimes you will um increase your income. And that increase in income, whether it is through a benefit that you receive from GCF in the example that Corey just gave, um, that increase in income will force you to be disqualified for a benefit. And it could be a benefit like SNAP or food stamps or the Women Infant Children WIC program or healthcare. Um, and so there's this really fine balance between how much income can go up, how quickly you could lose benefit, and does that actually put you in a worse position? And so there's a lot of work happening across the state right now with some great nonprofit partners, um, philanthropic partners and legislators to look at the policy implications and can we do what's called smooth that benefit cliff out to make sure that people are able to actually work towards increasing their income, which is what you want, um, without having these huge sweeping implications of losing benefits until they're stable and ready to come off of those benefits. So I just wanted to make sure people understood what that looks like in reality.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

I couldn't have said it better myself. And I will tell you that this was the year where the children's committee actually had a bill uh in partnership with the Connecticut Project to address the benefits, Cliff. And before we could even hear it, the speaker knew that it was a priority, not only for uh our caucus, but certainly for the uh entire state of Connecticut. So now it's a speaker's, it's in one of the speakers' bills, but it shows you just how important. Yeah, and it shows you just how important it is uh for us to address because if we don't address it, then again, you'll see many people uh fall out of that affordability crisis and really fall into those, under those lines of poverty.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Yeah, absolutely. Um, Corey, mindful of time, you know, I think uh you've done a great job of uh showing some of the challenges that we face as a state, um, highlighting where some really great work's being done. I really appreciate what you said about, you know, this population you're looking at, this constituency you're focusing on right now, maybe a small constituency, but you know, a really vital one, right? As they all are. Are there any other kind of pocket groups, smaller groups of people that you're trying to um move legislation on that would impact maybe a smaller subset of folks?

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah. I think big more than anything, we have to understand what motivates us with these communities. And so what motivates me is simple. You know, where you start in life should not determine where you end up. And the reality is for too many families, especially in marginalized communities across our state, that the odds are stacked against them from the beginning. So absolutely from birth. And so, right, that's why Cradle to Career does so much work through United Way uh entities. And look, whether it's access to quality education, stable housing, healthcare, or even transportation, those gaps compound over time. I try to stay focused on equity because equity is really about fairness and it is about making sure that every family has a real shot at stability and opportunity. And in a state like Connecticut, where we have so much wealth alongside so much need, that responsibility is even greater. So that work is personally as personal to me as I know it is to you. And it's about dignity. It's about making sure that every child, no matter their zip code, has a chance to thrive. So I don't know if it's necessarily a specific constituency or community. I think it's just for all people, regardless of where they live, regardless of what they look like. Because when one group does well, we all do well. Uh and certainly it's the saying that my grandmother used to say uh a rising tide lifts all boats. And I just want us to lift all boats.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Yeah, and I I love that. Um, I think we often forget the value that comes from improving the lives of a subset of people, right? And the impact that that can have. Um and being able to focus on tackling not just the really big challenges that will support everybody, but some of the really big challenges that only support a smaller group of people because when we do that, we really can change impact, outcome, and at the end of the day, lives. Um, Corey, I always end and wrap with one question. Um, I feel like we live in a world that can be heavy and hard sometimes. And so I end with the question of when you are thinking about the future, what gives you hope? And so if you don't mind answering that, then we will wrap up from there.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Sure. No, and and I just want to thank you again for letting me share this space with you and and certainly with certainly with all of your listeners. And look, I think that we live in a place and time where hope is is uh is running on fumes these days. And so what gives me hope is the people. I see it in the families who are working uh incredibly hard every day to create better futures for their children, uh, but not just their children, but for everyone's children. And I see it in the nonprofit leaders uh and the frontline workers who show up with compassion and commitment. Um I see it in the colleagues across government who are pushing for meaningful change. I see it in the moments when communities uh come together across differences to support one another. We still have very real challenges around all the issues that we talked about today: childcare, student loans, poverty, affordability. Uh, and we certainly cannot ignore that. But we also have the tools and we have the talent uh and the will to address all of those things. And we uh we if we stay focused, if we stay collaborative, and if we keep centering the people most impacting, I truly believe that we can build a future where every family has a feel a fair shot at still. And success. And I will spend every last waking moment in public service ensuring that that is the mission and mantra and call to action that I subscribe to so that so many others can thrive outside of my time in this work and outside of the time of many of my colleagues.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Well, you could not have said that any better. We speak so much of the same language and have so much of a shared vision for what is possible. And so I just feel very lucky, Corey, to not only know you and call you a friend, but to have you doing the work that you're doing and leading so much of this, both in your local community, but also at the state level. So thank you for everything that you do and for sitting down with me and giving me a little bit of time today.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Thank you, Ashley.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

At United Way of Coastal and Western Connecticut, we work side by side with our community to address critical needs and advance equitable pathways to well-being and financial security for everyone. Rooted in Impact is a podcast that highlights how we are making a difference in our communities. Thank you so much for listening. If you want to learn more about us, visit UnitedwayCWC.org. And if you're interested in being our podcast sponsor, we'd love to have you. You can find new episodes every other Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.