Devon Gray knows what he’s up against. Gray is the president of End Poverty in California, or EPIC, a nonprofit founded in 2022 by former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs, who is now a special adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Since early last year, EPIC has been on a listening tour around the state, hearing stories from people experiencing poverty.

Policy decisions do appear to be “deeper than that,” digging into entrenched beliefs about what poverty in America means, according to Gray. “What are the conditions in the culture that empower and protect policymakers who make these objectively harmful decisions?” he asks.

Gray says EPIC still has many fights ahead, like pushing a bill that would reform some of the penalties for unpaid parking tickets, including eliminating vehicle tows, changing the registration-hold policy, and improve parking ticket payment plans.

At the center of a semi-circle formed by tables during the recent Humboldt County stop sat EPIC President Devon Gray in tan slacks with the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up. In a calming tone he explained that the stories being shared in the room would help inform the policy changes EPIC will lobby for at the state Capitol.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Devon Gray, President of End Poverty in California (EPIC), an organization that elevates the voices of people experiencing poverty by creating and implementing bold policies rooted in their needs. Learn more about Devon and EPIC’s work to build people power and center community perspectives below.

“In the end, what is happening in Napa is happening throughout the state and nation. In too many industries it is acceptable and even encouraged to simply extract wealth off the backs of workers —particularly poor workers of color — without sharing that wealth in any way that is even remotely equitable or that provides economic mobility. It makes the claim that hard work will lead to success in America, or that our nation is a meritocracy, patently absurd.”

“New Census data recently confirmed what many advocates saw coming: We squandered one of the greatest achievements in antipoverty policy this nation has ever known.

In one year, we went from a record low poverty rate of 7.8% – and child poverty being cut nearly in half to 5.2% – to the largest ever single-year rise and the child poverty rate increasing by a stunning 138%. In California the poverty rate for children under age 18 rose from 7.5% to nearly 17%.”

“On March 10, when a long-neglected levee broke and flooding devastated the town of Pajaro in California's northern Monterey County, the government failed at all levels to respond as more than 3,000 people evacuated.”

“Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s recent proposal to strip Medicaid coverage away from people who do not meet new work-reporting requirements puts more than 10 million people in Medicaid expansion states at high risk of losing coverage.”