essentials

We believe that all individuals and families should have access to the crisis services that provide a safety net, including housing, prescriptions, food, utility assistance, personal care, and transportation services. Crisis support includes help for unavoidable and unintentional events that cause hardships.

Who are we helping?
People in crisis.

What is our objective?
United Way of Acadiana will help individuals and families with temporary assistance to meet basic needs and/or recover from crisis.

Why is this important?
Assisting those whose problem-solving skills are overwhelmed is a fundamental part of our caring community belief system. We help each other. Beyond that core value, we understand our own connectedness. We, as a community, know that helping our most vulnerable neighbors, in turn, helps us all succeed as a group.

Now more than ever, our region needs a strong safety net. Individuals in our community face ongoing underemployment, hunger, and homelessness. Nationally 9.8% of families live below the poverty level; 14.4% of Louisiana families live below the poverty level. Those who live below the poverty line are considered economically vulnerable and are unable to consistently meet all of their needs. The vast number of families and individuals living in this category validates the maintenance and strengthening of our region’s safety net.

Individuals and families must meet their basic survival needs before they can work towards setting and reaching long-term educational and economic goals. A hungry or homeless child will not be able to succeed in school, and a family without reliable transportation is vulnerable to slipping through the cracks.

What are the obstacles?
A number of conditions and circumstances can put anyone in need of the basic essentials in life. United Way will work to eliminate the seemingly invisible barriers that exacerbate the already precarious position that many individuals and families face.

The inability to navigate various assistance systems stands as a barrier between many existing services and neighbors in need. Complex paperwork in combination with inadequate literacy skills and high levels of emotional stress are a combination that effectively bar many of the financially vulnerable from the very organizations there to help.  The transportation issue looms large as an obstacle to self-sufficiency.

A steady job requires steady, reliable transportation. In a community or a region without a strong public transit system, many good jobs are simply out of reach for would-be employees, and create a vicious cycle of dependency on charitable assistance. In United Way of Acadiana’s 4-parish service area, only one municipality—the city of Lafayette—has any form of public transit. For Acadiana residents, transportation can often mean the difference between employment and unemployment, between a perpetual dependence on their community safety net and independence.

For poor families or individuals, any number of issues may precipitate their decline into homelessness- from domestic violence to a healthcare emergency, from job loss to an emergency car repair. Prevention of this decline can be thought of both in the short-term and in the long-term. Short-term prevention strategies typically focus on addressing the immediate crisis. In many cases this is an eviction. Eviction prevention coupled with case management services, is an intervention that can help a family avoid ultimately becoming homeless. Long-term prevention strategies typically focus on addressing poverty, the underlying factor in their downward spiral. Lack of sufficient personal, social and financial resources defines poverty both as a condition and as a mindset.