A National Imperative: Joining Forces to Strengthen Human Services in America (Jan 2018)

The morning sun crests over the hills of Freedom County, USA. The streetlamps dim as lights flick on inside homes and businesses. Cars begin to fill the streets, heading west to fill a bustling metropolis. In the east, tractors roar awake and rumble across farm fields. Children pour out of yellow buses before the morning school bell rings. The community has come alive, buzzing and whirring like a well‑oiled machine. The County’s roughly 200,000 residents go to work and go to school. They volunteer and take care of their loved ones. They are teachers, doctors, farmers, and small business owners. They are bankers, laborers, mechanics, and programmers. They work with their hands. They work with their brains. They are scholars, athletes, musicians, and artists. They are parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. They are caregivers and breadwinners. Today, the County’s residents will earn about $30 million in wages. Average household income in the County is about $55,000 per year, just slightly below the national average. As in many places, though, this average masks significant inequality – roughly the poorest quintile of the County is living below the poverty line. The residents will also generate an additional $15 million in related economic activity. They will spend almost 1 million hours at work and more than 200,000 hours at school. They will return home to tens of thousands of households, small and large, and spend time with their families, friends, and local communities. Beneath the hustle and bustle, Freedom County is supported by a sprawling infrastructure. This infrastructure provides the foundation on which the County’s residents can live and thrive, helping to fuel the County’s economic engine. Fresh water flows through pipes into every building and home. Paved roads fan out across the County, dotted with streetlamps, traffic lights, and stop signs. Police officers and firefighters work to ensure that the County’s residents are safe. One crucial component of Freedom County’s infrastructure is its human services ecosystem. An array of community-based human services organizations (human services CBOs) work in tandem with the Freedom County Department of Human Services (DHS) to provide critical support and services for the County’s residents. The human services CBOs are private, nonprofit organizations which earn the bulk of their funding from contracts with DHS and other government entities. Private donations from foundations, corporations, and individual donors make up a much smaller portion of funding. In turn, human services CBOs deliver critical services

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