Our Communities Can’t Wait – Please Consider Donating
Covid-19 is an existential crisis that impacts everyone. While some have been able to work from home, many of our neighbors are making difficult tradeoffs between paying rent, putting food on their table, and keeping their kids engaged in remote learning. The state unemployment rate has skyrocketed from 2.4% to as high as 32.6% in hard-hit cities, pushing more than 330,000 families deeper into financial crisis
Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley has raised and distributed over $8 million to more than 300,000 vulnerable people, providing emergency financial assistance of $300 on average to help pay for food, rent/housing, utilities, and other basic needs. More than 100,500 households received food assistance, 3,500 households had utility/rental help and another 8,000 households received general financial assistance. One hundred percent of donations to United Way were distributed to families in need. In some of our target communities, many applicants for financial assistance have had no income since mid-March.
Six Headlines of the Current Crisis
- The MA unemployment rate skyrocketed from 2.8% before Covid-19 hit to over 16% this summer.
- We are bracing for a potential 60,000 evictions, more than triple the 16,000 in an average year.
- COVID led to the loss of 800 beds, pushing an already strained homeless shelter system to the brink.
- Racial and economic inequities are more glaring than ever. Rates of infection, unemployment and food insecurity as much as 3x and 2x higher for Black and Latinx residents.
- The early education sector is in a perilous situation, losing $250 million during the shutdown.
- Remote learning has brought in a whole new set of challenges for families, afterschool programs and for an estimated 127,000 students in our region.
United Way has the scale and reach to help. Join us in raising $52 million to lead a comprehensive community response to the ongoing crisis.