Community Action Board: Community Action Plan 2017-2018

This report is not intended to be a comprehensive resource on poverty in Santa Cruz County. Rather, it conveys our findings as part of an ongoing effort to more fully understand the poverty-related challenges and opportunities within our community. We begin with a descrip-tion of our needs assessment, planning process, and the equity framework that anchored the process. In presenting our findings, we include county-wide poverty data that is relevant to the needs assessment. Throughout the report, we highlight the voices of our community on these issues as a way to add depth and dimension to traditional views of poverty; views that tend to be limiting and often incomplete. The report concludes with a set of recommendations for more effectively serving those affected by poverty and/or advancing equity in Santa Cruz County. We invite decision-makers, service providers, elected officials, and social change advocates to consider how this information can help inform and support their respective efforts and priorities.