Initiatives
The Blum Center runs programs throughout the year that support research, learning, debate, and community engagement on poverty, inequality, and democracy.
Central Coast Regional Equity Initiative
The Blum Center and The Fund for Santa Barbara sponsor the Central Coast Regional Equity Initiative (CCREI). The initiative funds community-engaged research at UCSB and publishes data on inequality in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo counties, including employment and wages, housing, health, education, political representation, and environmental risk.
The CCREI produced its first report, Towards a Just and Equitable Central Coast (2021), with USC's Equity Research Institute. Its most recent report, Equity Matters 2024, adds San Luis Obispo County to the region the study covers.
Dr. U.S. Awasthi Initiative in Cooperative Economics
The initiative supports research on cooperative economics, from the communal practices and empowerment strategies of Indigenous communities to the support and exchange networks of today's mutual aid movement. Cooperatives have a long history in movements for racial and intersectional justice.
Support from the family of Dr. U.S. Awasthi funds research by UCSB undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty, and a workshop series on cooperative economics.
Central Coast Community Labor Project
The Blum Center oversees the Central Coast Community Labor Project, UC Santa Barbara's first labor center. Through its Labor Summer program, run with the Central Coast Labor Council, UCSB students spend the summer as paid interns at Central Coast unions and allied organizations, learning and applying organizing and research practices.
People's Guide series
Each People's Guide breaks down a complex public issue or policy so that more people can take part in the debate over it. Blum Center student leaders choose each topic with community partners.
The most recent guide, A People's Guide to UCSB's Student Housing Crisis (2023), draws on a survey of 237 students.