Instead of Eviction, Landlords and Tenants Talk It Out

Around the world, students borrow money to pay for college, but, in the United States, students are more likely to fall behind on loans. Australia may offer some lessons: borrowers in Australia only start paying back their loans once their earnings reach $40,000, and beyond that they pay four percent of their income until the loans are repaid. The system does not penalize borrowers when they face economic hardship.

Cure Violence is a the national non-profit organization that for 16 years has helped multiple cities adopt strategies for violence prevention that mirror those used in disease control. Programs employ trained “violence interrupters” and outreach workers to identify and mediate potentially deadly conflicts, maintaining relationships with those involved to ensure the conflict does not reignite. Cleveland hopes that replicating the model will help reduce local violence and crime.

A growing number of tribal judges nationwide - including Judge Abby Abinanti of the Yurok Tribal Court - are using a framework of traditional culture and an approach known as "restorative justice" to address both the need for rehabilitation of offenders and resolution for people often failed by the dominant criminal justice system.

An Oakland nonprofit incubator, The Runway Project, addresses racial and economic injustices in entrepreneurship by offering flexible loans for people of color and low-income individuals looking to start a business. Borrowers benefit from flexible loan terms and qualifications, both of which are usually barriers to entry for people of color in the business world.

A growing number of states have started to require financial education in high schools. Studies have shown that in states that mandate financial literacy classes as part of the core curriculum, students have less credit card debt and less expensive student loans.

To improve financial literacy and knowledge around child development, Prosperity Works – a program in New Mexico – is offering classes focused on these issues to parents. This program offers the foundational education necessary to open a bank account and use Individual Development Accounts to save funds for housing or educational needs.

To protect the Mesoamerican Reef from the effects of climate change, key stakeholders in Mexico created the world’s first insurance policy to protect a natural asset. The policy provides an immediate infusion of cash in the event of a damaging storm, allowing hotel owners and local governments to quickly repair the reef and prevent further degradation. A volunteer corps of people called the Guardians of the Reef make those repairs. While the insurance policy doesn’t cover pollution or overfishing, this mechanism could work for reefs in other countries to restore and protect threatened ecosystems.

A pediatric care center in Philadelphia has partnered with a nonprofit that "helps people with tax prep and asset-building" as well as an organization that provides financial counselors to offer young patients free, on-site help with their taxes. The initiative is modeled after Boston Medical Center' StreetCred program which has "returned more than $5.3 million to more than 2,700 low-income families since 2016."

Indianapolis' Howe High School has joined the movement surfacing in America's public schools towards restorative justice. In 2015, in lieu of suspensions and expulsions, Howe's leadership formed a peer justice jury to help fighting students talk through their conflicts and anger. Just one year after the program's inception, the school's expulsion rate decreased 90 percent, saving over 600 hours of what otherwise would have been students' lost classroom time.

Rwanda has a unique program that allows farmers to insure their livestock, such as dairy cows, productive pork, and chickens, against Rift Valley Fever. When animals die of the disease, farmers are compensated at a rate of 5.5 percent of the animal's value.