Advocate for Head Start & Medi-Cal Funding today!

Encompass needs your help! We are calling on all Santa Cruz County community members to contact your elected officials demanding them to fight AGAINST federal budget cuts that would eliminate the Head Start program and severely reduce Medicaid/Medi-Cal funding. Our clients and most vulnerable community members are depending on you. We must mobilize to save Head Start and Medi-Cal funding.

“These proposed cuts are nothing short of catastrophic,” says Shellee Stopera, CEO of Encompass Community Services. “Eliminating Head Start and slashing Medicaid would deeply harm our most vulnerable Santa Cruz populations, threatening their access to early education, mental health care, substance use treatment, and essential health services.”

Encompass is the only Head Start provider in Santa Cruz County, resulting in over 250 children and families losing childcare as a result of the federal government’s proposal to eliminate the program nationally. The Head Start program provides critical early learning, vision, hearing, and developmental screenings, nutritious meals, dental care, and family support services to low-income families. Eliminating Head Start would leave children without critical access to early education and care and parents without the support they need to work and care for their families.

At the same time, proposed deep cuts to Medicaid (a.k.a., Medi-Cal in California) would severely impact Encompass' ability to provide mental health, substance use treatment, housing support, and wraparound care for thousands of individuals facing complex social, health, and economic challenges as the majority of Encompass clients are covered through Medi-Cal. According to the Central California Alliance for Health (CCAH), approximately 1 in 3 Santa Cruz County residents are Medi-Cal recipients, which means these cuts will directly impact over 85,000 people, a third of our community.

“Our community cannot afford these cuts,” Stopera adds. “Without Medicaid, we lose the ability to serve people at their most vulnerable. Without Head Start, we leave children behind before they even reach kindergarten.”

The time to speak up and advocate for our community is now. Encompass urges all community members to contact their California legislative representatives and demand that they reject these cuts and invest in the well-being of our children and families. The 85,000 Santa Cruz residents who will be most impacted by these cuts are counting on us. Take action today! Thank you for your support.

U.S. Senator Alex Padilla

- Washington, D.C. Office: (202) 224-3553

- California Office (San Francisco): (415) 981-9369

- Contact: https://www.padilla.senate.gov

U.S. Senator Adam Schiff

- Washington, D.C. Office: (202) 224-3841

- California Office (San Francisco): (415) 393-0707

- Contact: https://www.schiff.senate.gov

Congressman Jimmy Panetta (CA-19)

- Washington, D.C. Office: (202) 225-2861

- Santa Cruz District Office: (831) 429-1976

- Contact: https://panetta.house.gov