INCOME

All families should have access to the economic and employment opportunities they need to provide for their future. To achieve economic and financial security, working families need predictable resources to meet their basic needs, provide for emergencies, improve quality of life, make ongoing investments in lifelong learning and to build assets such as a home or retirement savings.

Challenges

More than 900,000 working families in metro Atlanta have difficulty providing for basics such as food, clothing and housing.
32 percent of children under age 18 live in families whose income is less than $19,000 per year, far below the self-sufficiency standard.
40,000 families annually are at risk of losing their housing.

United Way priorities

The Metro Atlanta Financial Stability Partnership (MAFSP) will focus on improving the workforce system and provide better opportunities for families to obtain a steady income and become more financially stable. MAFSP works to ensure that working families have access to opportunities, programs, tools and products that will allow them to reach financial stability, provide for basic needs and begin building assets.
By connecting financial literacy and asset-building tools to other services, hard-working families will build skills to ensure sustainable change.
Make housing affordable by reducing the burden of housing costs for low-income families through innovative strategies like the Land Trust.
Bring an additional $17 million into the pockets of more than 80,000 hard-working families through free tax preparation (partners include Atlanta Community Food Bank, Sullivan Center, Goodwill).

Results so far

Last year, with your support, we helped more than 286,000 families meet their emergency needs.
The IDA program has been operating for more than 10 years, with no foreclosures. Along with investing in programs to help people maintain and buy homes, we’ve helped 100 families become new homeowners this year.

Our initiative work also helps people meet their basic needs

Last year, we raised $3.7 million specifically for urgent, critical needs in our community. Those gifts are being invested in more than 45 nonprofits to help people with rent assistance, food assistance, budgeting and financial counseling.
Critical Needs Campaign grants have helped more than 850 families.