BRICK Network’s Economic Mobility Lab Creates Pathways to Economic Success

According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a living wage is $51,500 for a single adult and $109,591 for a household (which is classified as a working adult with three dependents). The United States Census Bureau estimates that the median yearly income for households in Newark is $48,416. This means that a single adult would have to earn $28.87 hourly – $50.16 per hour for a household – to meet the living wage threshold. New Jersey's 2025 minimum wage is $15.49 per hour. Additionally, approximately 24.7 percent of Newark's population lives below the poverty line. These figures demonstrate that most residents in the city are struggling to afford basic needs, such as housing, food, transportation, childcare, and healthcare.

People of color are the most impacted by these wage gaps. At Victoria Foundation, a strategic priority is to foster economic justice by supporting organizations that focus on policies and practices that increase access to living wage jobs. One of these partnerships is with South Ward's BRICK Networks, which hosts a comprehensive network of services to support families from pre-cradle-to-career through holistic support, schooling, and pathways to college and career. A particular service offered by the organization is the Economic Mobility Lab, which operates to narrow the living wage gap by removing the barriers that prevent an individual from receiving educational training due to life's circumstances.

The Economic Mobility Lab is a community hub dedicated to supporting the residents of Newark by providing supportive coaching, professional development programs, and personalized pathways to economic prosperity. It creates these pathways by partnering with individuals to develop customized, actionable plans that encompass health, financial education, academic advancement, and career growth. Each participant collaborates with a Navigator, a near-peer specialist or trained social work professional who offers coaching in education, health, and workforce development.

The initiative makes it possible for an individual to benefit from the programs and services BRICK Networks offers, such as Gateway U, a hybrid college in partnership with Southern New Hampshire University that offers flexible and affordable college degree programs tailored for working adults and non-traditional students. The institution will host its second commencement ceremony on Friday, June 27, from 10 a.m. -12 p.m. at The Newark Museum of Art, where 50 students will graduate, many of whom are Newark residents and the first in their families to earn a college degree.

Other BRICK Networks initiatives include Career Pathways, a comprehensive program for South Ward residents ages 18 to 36 to gain professional skills to facilitate upward career mobility and income growth; the South Ward Wellness Center, which provides comprehensive community health and wellness services; South Ward Children's Alliance; and BRICK Gateway Academy Middle, Elementary, and High schools, which run on the principles of providing culturally relevant pedagogy, a whole-child social emotional learning focus, holistic support services for the whole family, and college and career readiness. The organization has also expanded beyond Newark's South Ward to provide schools for youth in Buffalo and Rochester, New York.

Pictured is Newark's First Lady Linda Baraka; Jazmin Rivera, vice president of holistic supports at BRICK Networks; Kim Cook, director of social impact and community investment at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center; Dr. Lois Greene, senior vice president of wellness, diversity, equity, and inclusion at University Hospital; and Dominique Lee, CEO at BRICK Networks.

"For five to eight years, we were only doing emergency rental and energy assistance," Lee said. "We had to take a step back as an organization and ask ourselves, 'Are we in the business of just putting a Band-Aid on the situation, or do we want to break the cycle? That is when we evolved from just doing the rental assistance to now being more of a career pathways program to support people around getting access to livable wages and putting the actual systems in place to allow for that to happen."

Due to this collection of work, BRICK Networks was named a South Ward Promise Neighborhood in 2017 and 2021. Promise Neighborhoods is a national place-based initiative that provides selected organizations with grants to ensure children in underserved communities receive access to a quality education and have ample support systems to ensure long-term success.

Victoria Foundation has supported BRICK Networks since its inception, providing the organization with its first grant 15 years ago. BRICK Networks continues to be a lead partner with the Foundation due to its commitment to fostering economic justice, strengthening community power, and promoting youth self-determination, the Foundation's three strategy under the Thriving Neighborhoods Initiative, a place-focused approach designed to support long-term well-being in three Newark neighborhoods: Fairmount, Upper Clinton Hill, and Lower Broadway.

"BRICK is always striving to be innovative and continue to push the needle, and Victoria is always willing to listen, be there, and support us in those initiatives," said Lee.

There are several ways the community can become involved with the Economic Mobility Lab.

"To become a participant, just give us a call and we will do the intake and go from there to see if it is a good fit," said Lee. "Of course, we are a nonprofit. So, donations are important. In addition to that, volunteerism is also essential as we continue to build our pathways and career programs."

For more information about the Economic Mobility Lab or BRICK Networks, visit www.bricknetworks.org. To stay up to date with Victoria Foundation's news and partner features, join the mailing list at www.victoriafoundation.org.