Families in Monterey County struggle with the cost of housing and quality, affordable child care.
- For six out of 10 families with children, housing and child care expend 50% or more of their budget.
- One in three working families in Monterey County is struggling to get by.
To help people become financially stable, United Way focuses on increasing access to affordable, quality child care and housing.
We are taking the lead to increase access to quality, affordable child care in our community by:
- Funding the Migrant Head Start Program to ensure that farmworkers have quality, affordable child care through the entire season.
- Increasing the quality of informal child care providers in Gonzales so they can better prepare their children for kindergarten.
- Streamlining connections for parents to the information they need to make the best child care choices.
- We are driving the network around child care and early learning and advocating for systems change through Bright Futures Cradle to Career Partnership.
The lack of affordable, quality housing for working families is affecting community health, safety and educational outcomes. It also makes it difficult for local businesses to recruit and keep workers. We are taking the lead to increase access to quality, affordable housing by:
- Investing in Monterey Bay Housing Trust, where our investment is matched 4:1 to create new, affordable housing units.
- Participating in the Farm Worker Housing Survey to develop Best Practices for housing of the agriculture labor force.
- Advocating for affordable housing policies in local communities.
We’re continuing to deliver our signature services such as Stuff the Bus, 2-1-1 Monterey County, VITA Free Tax Prep and Volunteer Center.
Last year ...
4,500 students living in homeless conditions received the supplies necessary for academic success and they returned to school with increased confidence through UWMC's Stuff the Bus program.
Our Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) FREE tax prep service helped 1,188 tax filers claim more than $1.9 Million in refunds and credits.
19,827 people were connected to needed local services through United Way's 211. Residents reached out to 211 seeking assistance primarily with food and housing, followed by disaster relief, employment, education, health and well-being, and tax assistance, and more.