Struggling parents with children still in diapers may get a $30 million boost under a proposed state budget allocation to assist existing diaper banks in California and launch similar services in other regions, including San Bernardino County.
Money for the five state-funded diaper banks now in operation – in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Fresno and San Francisco counties – and three new ones would extend over a three-year period, with each diaper bank receiving a total of $3.75 million under the spending plan proposed by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, and supported by a host of Southern California legislators.
Job loss and other economic hardships imposed on families by the coronavirus pandemic, along with spikes in the cost of disposable diapers, is sending more parents with young children to the diaper banks and other social service organizations looking for help.
Just as COVID-19 sparked food insecurity on a scale not seen before by local food banks, demand for diaper assistance rose exponentially over the past year, say operators of the five state-subsidized diaper banks, which are part of the National Diaper Bank Network.
Community Action Partnership of Orange County operates one of the county’s two food banks and its only community-based diaper bank, which is part of the National Diaper Bank Network. Since it launched, the service has distributed 10.7 million diapers – in allotments of 50 diapers a month per child. That adds up to diapering an average of 37,000 baby bottoms a month.
“The need for diapers is a crisis,” said Gregory Scott, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit.
“Just as food and hunger is a crisis.”