Step-Up Silicon Valley
Campaign to Cut Poverty

Community & Parish Partnerships


Primary Contact: Almaz Negash 408.325.5128 anegash@CatholicCharitiesSCC.org
anegash@stepupsv.com

Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County has initiated a Campaign to Cut Poverty in Santa Clara County. By bringing together faith community leaders, nonprofits, government, research, legal experts, and business, we will all “step up” to do our part to meet our goal of cutting the poverty rate in half by the year 2020.

Local statistics show the reality of poverty in Santa Clara County: 120,000 households (one out of four) have to choose between paying the rent, buying food, or paying for health care. The income gap continues to widen, with 39% of local jobs paying less than $30,000 while the income needed by a family of four just to survive in this area of high rents is over $70,000. Our definition of the poverty line is “what it takes to live here.” Reversing this trend is in the public interest, it is for the common good.

We have formed task forces to direct five key elements to the campaign: creating awareness, building coalitions, advocating for policy changes, developing more efficient services, and increasing public and private funding dedicated to preventing and ending poverty.

Key policies and services to counter poverty include: Food, Housing, Health Care, Education, and Resources (benefits, employment/income, legal status, and safety-net services such as appropriate clothing, child/dependent care, and transportation.

Participants in the campaign network represent these areas. If you are interested in sharing your knowledge or concern, please contact us. Cutting poverty will take the gifts of each one of us!

This is a long-term initiative. We will record our progress toward our goal by measuring how we are raising awareness about each issue area, engaging partners throughout the county, advocating for policies to increases access, securing funding , and providing services in the most affordable, efficient and productive way as we move toward agreed upon outcomes year by year.