Reimagining Economic Mobility:
Loss, Grief, and Repair
This portfolio of work examines how cumulative experiences of loss shape economic opportunity, community stability, and life trajectories. By bringing together data, lived experience, and interdisciplinary inquiry, this work challenges traditional economic mobility frameworks that overlook grief as a structural force. The portfolio seeks to expand how policymakers, researchers, and communities understand mobility while centering repair, resilience, and long-term well-being as essential to economic opportunity.
Community Loss/Community Hope Index
Partners: TD Bank’s MindPower Program, Philadelphia Department of Public Health, Dispute Economics
The Community Loss Index was developed in 2013 at Hunter College to identify “high-loss corridors” in NYC for insight on how chronic exposure to loss affects neighborhood stability with economic considerations. We are adapting and expanding this tool into a Philadelphia-specific CLI focused on two critical generational cohorts (ages 18-46), a longitudinal build-out that maps loss exposure from 1978 to present, and an economic projection model (Community Hope Index) that quantifies the long-term financial impact of underinvesting in this generation’s human potential and models the impacts of potential investments in their well-being.
The Hidden Burden
Partners: Philadelphia Department of Public Health, The Media Design Fellowship @ WWFL
Engagement Pipelines: YES Philly, Youth Build, Episcocpal Community Services, Heights Philadelphia, The Defender’s Association of Philadelphia, YEAH Philly, The Advocacy Institute
Focused on young adults (18–26), the project seeks to surface how grief derails development at one of life’s most crucial stages. From 2025–2028 we will conduct an IRB approved research study that consists of a survey of 150 young adults, 80–100 interviews, and media based content creation for social media and in-person engagements of the targeted audiences.