The Community Action Research Initiative (CARI) is a small grants program that encourages and supports sociologists and communities using social science knowledge, methods, and expertise to address community-identified issues and concerns. CARI provides up to $3,000 for each project to cover direct costs associated with the community action research.
Current CARI award winners are listed below. Read about past winners here. Read more about how to apply here.
Please direct any questions to Liska Radachi at [email protected].
2025 Award Recipients
Maria Akchurin and Juanita Vivas Bastidas, Loyola University Chicago
Community Knowledge in Action: Building Research Capacity and Local Data Sources on Environmental Exposure, Vulnerability, and Resilience with Neighbors for Environmental Justice
Environmental justice (EJ) organizations are leading efforts across U.S. cities to prioritize public health in urban land use planning, zoning, and permitting. In Chicago, these efforts have led to the proposed Hazel M. Johnson Cumulative Impact Ordinance, which aims to address social and geographic disparities in exposure to environmental hazards by considering how multiple pollution sources and social vulnerability factors are distributed throughout the city. In this context, our project with Alfredo Romo, Madalynn Benavides, and other members of Neighbors for Environmental Justice (N4EJ), an EJ organization based on Chicago’s Southwest side, examines how residents living and working near pollution and contaminated land perceive environmental and social stressors. The project highlights three groups often underrepresented in EJ policy discussions: older adults, industrial workers, and small business owners. We will conduct bilingual life history interviews with each group to explore how environmental stressors intersect with access to healthcare and housing, labor conditions, and local economic development in the respondents’ daily lives. We will then collaborate to create educational materials, share our findings, and build on the qualitative component by developing survey tools in English, Spanish, and Chinese (Mandarin) for broader community outreach. Our overarching goals are to generate data sources and tools that support N4EJ’s organizing and advocacy efforts and to strengthen the group’s long-term capacity to gather and analyze information for multiple audiences.
Stacey Livingstone, Homelessness Hub at UC San Diego
Stacey Livingstone, Homelessness Hub at UC San DiegoRoommate Potential: Can Shared Housing Improve Housing and Health Outcomes for Poz Individuals by Reducing Social Isolation?
People living with HIV (Poz individuals) are at greater risk of experiencing social isolation on account of HIV stigmatization. Disconnection from family, friends, healthcare providers, and social service organizations not only diminishes health outcomes as mental health declines and medical appointments and medication regimes become harder to manage, but isolation exacerbates the already high rates of housing instability witnessed among this population. Although federally funded HIV housing exists, its limited supply forces many to rely on the private market which can be incredibly difficult to do in high-cost regions. In San Diego, organizations assisting Poz individuals such as Townspeople have traditionally relied on private market placements in residential hotels (RH) that offer small rooms and shared amenities. Yet given the high need for affordable housing, a new shared housing model (SH) for Poz individuals has recently been implemented, where Poz individuals are connected to potential roommates who are also HIV positive.
This study seeks to answer the following two questions: 1) does SH improve perceived housing stability for Poz individuals reliant on the private housing market; 2) does SH improve health outcomes for Poz individuals compared to outcomes for those living in RH? As Poz individuals face higher rates of housing instability and isolation, factors that impact both HIV transmission and health outcomes, it will be important to determine if SH can improve housing stability and health management through its connection to social support, both directly in the form of an important social tie (a roommate with shared lived experience) and indirectly to healthcare providers through the reduction of stigma.
Zitsi Mirakhur and Hope Harvey, University of Kentucky
Identifying and Serving Vulnerable Students: Evidence from Rural Kentucky
Housing insecurity among school-aged children in the U.S. has reached crisis levels. And amid rising housing insecurity, schools have come to play critical roles: Schools are often the places where children are identified as experiencing homelessness and where they (and their families) access resources and supports. Schools undertake this work within a decentralized policy environment, in which they are responsible for designing and implementing supports for homeless students in accordance with federal mandates but with substantial flexibility and limited resources.
Our work focuses on eight elementary schools across Kentucky. We seek to understand how educators understand homelessness as well as economic vulnerability more broadly. Additionally, we will document the ways in which educators identify and serve students in economic need. In undertaking this work, our aim is to bring a sociological lens to an important policy issue. Educational institutions are where federal mandates to equalize opportunities for students experiencing homelessness get understood and implemented, and sociologists are well-suited to shed light on these processes.