What our communities told us, and what we're doing about it.
Yellowstone Country Assistance Network works alongside communities to change the conditions that create poverty, strengthen local systems, and expand opportunities for future generations.
A family facing eviction needs help this week. We care about that family. Our mission also asks a second question: why does this keep happening, and what could work better?
This page shows how Community Action moves from listening, to deciding, to acting, to learning, and then listens again.
Why do we ask what's happening upstream?
Yellowstone Country Assistance Network works alongside communities to change the conditions that create poverty, strengthen local systems, and expand opportunities for future generations.
That mission changes the question. Of course we care about the family facing eviction today. But our mission also asks us to look upstream:
- ConditionsWhat contributed to the crisis?
- ResourcesWhat already exists?
- BarriersWhere are people getting stuck?
- ConnectionsWhat could work better together?
- Our roleWhere can YCAN make a meaningful contribution?
That's why we conduct Community Needs Assessments, and why we turn what we learn into a Community Action Plan.
One mission, one continuous circle.
- Our MissionThe reason for everything below.
- ListenCommunity Needs AssessmentData, surveys, focus groups, and people who use services.
- UnderstandData + residents + customers + partnersWhat's happening, and why it keeps happening.
- PrioritizeThe Tripartite BoardRanks the needs that matter most.
- Choose our roleCommunity Action PlanDecides what YCAN will do, and what it won't.
- ActServices + partnerships + community initiativesCarried out with local partners.
- MeasureOutcomes + customer experienceDid it work, and how did it feel to use?
- Learn & changeAdjust what we doFix what isn't working.
- ↻ Listen againThe next assessment starts with what we learned.
The paperwork isn't the process. The learning is the process.
Park County's top needs.
The Tripartite Board identified top community needs at an August 2025 work session, received a summary of the findings in January 2026, and reviewed and formally accepted the Park County assessment, including these needs, on August 4, 2026.
Each priority names who is affected and what is needed. It doesn't prescribe a particular service or provider. The assessment establishes the need. Our Community Action Plan decides what role, if any, YCAN takes in response.
Individuals and families
- Economic and housing stability. Low-income households whose income is too low or unstable for housing and basic costs need greater economic stability and help getting and keeping safe, stable housing.
- Clear, coordinated pathways. Households working through several public and community programs need clear pathways to find, apply for, and connect with resources they may qualify for.
- Practical recovery support. People affected by substance use and recovery need practical support to stay engaged in recovery and keep housing, work, and household stability.
Needs that belong to the whole community
Already at work: One Health Family Resource Coordinators, the Park County Court Supervised Treatment Program, Active in Recovery, and First Stop. Community Action's part is to connect and strengthen, not to own.
- Affordable housing supply. An adequate range of housing affordable to lower-income workers and families, including options for people experiencing homelessness or leaving treatment or justice involvement.
- Connected resources. Stronger connections among existing resources, so residents don't get lost between separate eligibility, referral, and service systems.
- A recovery-supportive system. Treatment and behavioral health connected with housing, transportation, work, and peer support, including in smaller and outlying communities.
YCAN as an agency
- Flexible capacity. As a one-employee Eligible Entity across three counties, YCAN needs enough flexible capacity for the board to direct CSBG to what fits each county.
- Sustainable administration and governance. Less duplicative compliance work, and an engaged Tripartite Board representing all three counties.
- Current information and strong partners. So the board can tell what's already covered, what needs better connection, and where CSBG can fill a real gap.
Hot Springs County's top needs.
The 2026 Hot Springs County Community Needs Assessment supplements Hot Springs Health's 2025 Community Health Needs Assessment. The board received the top needs at its January 27, 2026 annual meeting and formally accepted the assessment on August 4, 2026.
The same five needs, housing, transportation, wages, childcare, and behavioral health, have come up in every assessment period since 2019. That points to conditions built into the system, not a temporary disruption. The key finding: residents must contact several separate agencies and repeat the same paperwork to get help they already qualify for.
Individuals and families
- Stable, affordable housing. The county is short an estimated 150–200 affordable units, and rents exceed what local wages support.
- Reliable transportation. More than 2,000 square miles, no public transit, and some households without a vehicle make it hard to reach work, health care, and services.
- Childcare that fits working hours. No evening or weekend slots, and waitlists for infants and toddlers keep parents from steady work.
Needs that belong to the whole community
Already at work: the Philips Help Center, Hot Springs Health. Community Action's part is to connect and strengthen, not to own.
- Affordable housing supply. Not enough affordable units for current or projected demand.
- Behavioral health people can actually reach. Long waitlists, online-only intake, and distance keep people out of care that technically exists.
- A livable wage floor. Wages haven't kept pace with the cost of housing, childcare, and transportation.
Agency and system
- Coordinated navigation. The key finding: state programs don't share information, applications, or eligibility pathways, so households prove the same need again and again.
- Eligibility that fits rural work. Seasonal and irregular income doesn't line up with state documentation and eligibility rules.
- Capacity to meet compliance. Administrative requirements keep growing without a matching increase in the county's allocation.
Teton County's needs.
YCAN began serving Teton County as its temporary CSBG Eligible Entity with the 2026 grant year. Teton County already has a recent community assessment: the 2024 Healthy Teton County Community Health Needs Assessment, prepared by the Teton County Health Department, St. John's Health, and Voices JH. As directed by Wyoming CSP, the board accepted the 2024 assessment as Teton County's Community Needs Assessment on August 4, 2026, rather than duplicate it.
YCAN didn't author the 2024 assessment or conduct a separate one. Our Teton County CSBG Supplemental Report looks at its findings through a CSBG poverty lens, focused on the households who qualify for CSBG help; the board accepted it for planning. The needs below come from that report.
Individuals and families
- Safe, stable housing. Low-income workers and families can't afford it. Nearly half of renters are cost-burdened.
- Affordable health and behavioral health care. Many residents are uninsured, and few behavioral health providers accept Medicare or Medicaid.
- Help getting benefits they already qualify for. Many households below the poverty line receive no SNAP because of paperwork and system barriers.
- Help in the right language, through trusted channels. Hispanic/Latino and immigrant families face the steepest barriers.
Needs that belong to the whole community
Already at work: One22 Resource Center, Healthy Teton County, St. John's Health. Community Action's part is to connect and strengthen, not to own.
- Workforce housing. A severe shortage of housing the local workforce can afford.
- Reachable health care capacity. Provider shortages and long waits limit access, even with strong health-system infrastructure.
- A coordinated referral pathway. Services are fragmented, so eligible households often arrive only at the crisis stage, if at all.
YCAN as an agency
- A Teton County board member. The seat is open. See who we're looking for.
- Teton-specific community input. As our newest county, we don't yet have enough local client and resident input.
- Formal partner pathways and bilingual outreach. Referral agreements and culturally responsive outreach are still being built.
What's next in Teton County: the FFY 2027 budget includes a qualitative portion (focus groups, interviews, and targeted outreach) in 2027. When Healthy Teton County completes its next assessment, YCAN will add a CSBG supplemental report, as Wyoming CSP guidance allows.
Want a full assessment? The Park County and Hot Springs County assessments are available on request in an accessible electronic format — request a copy or call (833) 444-9923. Teton County's assessment was written by St. John's Health and its partners, not by Community Action, and you can read it at stjohns.health.
A need is not the same as a service.
The board's prioritization grew out of discussions in August 2025 and May 2026. Members looked at data, community input, existing resources, and how needs connect, instead of treating each issue alone.
Housing shows why that matters. A household facing eviction may benefit from rent or utility help, but a one-time payment doesn't necessarily fix unstable income, childcare, transportation, a disruption in recovery, or a shortage of affordable housing. So the board named economic and housing stability as the need, not rent assistance itself.
Reach versus impact
Limited funds can be split into smaller payments to reach more households. But the number of people served doesn't show that a need was resolved. A rent payment that still leaves a balance may not stop the eviction it was meant to prevent.
Guardrails with flexibility
The board sets priorities, allowable services, funding limits, and internal controls. Within those boundaries, individual circumstances can be considered, especially when a partner meets a need that doesn't fit neatly into another program.
What need are we trying to address, what resources already exist, and what use of limited CSBG resources can reasonably contribute to a meaningful outcome?
Not simply, "How many people can we assist?"
Knowing there's a need doesn't tell us what to do.
Before a need becomes part of our plan, we ask:
- Is someone else already doing this well?
- Would YCAN duplicate something that exists?
- Can our limited funding produce a meaningful outcome?
- Is this one household's need, or a recurring community pattern?
- Could a partnership accomplish more than another program?
- Do we know enough yet, or do we need to listen more?
Community Action looks for leverage points, not ownership of services.
When a gap gets filled by someone else, we don't defend our old role. We look at the system again, find the next place a small amount of capacity could matter, and move there. A community is better off when a need is met — not when we're the ones meeting it.
A plan should answer what we heard.
- The Community Needs Assessment tells us what is happening.
- The Tripartite Board asks why, and what matters most.
- The Community Action Plan asks: what are we going to do about it?
Not every need becomes a YCAN program. Sometimes the plan calls for:
- Direct assistance
- Working through a community partner already better positioned to help
- Strengthening a referral pathway
- Gathering better information before acting
- A community initiative aimed at a recurring condition, not one individual transaction
The Community Action Plan is where YCAN chooses its role.
The mission stays the same. The response doesn't have to.
- What we heard
- Recovery doesn't happen apart from housing, transportation, work, and family stability. The assessment names practical recovery support and a recovery-supportive community system as priorities.
- What the plan does
- Focuses Park County on recovery and the practical conditions that help people stay engaged in it, including a community initiative with local recovery partners.
- How we act
- Treatment and recovery partners keep the recovery relationship and case management. YCAN adds eligible practical support, such as housing, utilities, and transportation, around that work.
We don't provide the recovery.We help strengthen the conditions around it.
- What we heard
- Housing, transportation, wages, childcare, and behavioral health keep coming up, while rural distance and fragmented systems make help harder to reach.
- What the plan does
- Focuses limited CSBG funds where they complement, rather than recreate, what already exists in the county.
- How we act
- Works through the Philips Help Center, which already knows the household and local resources. YCAN adds eligible housing and basic-stability support where it fits.
Sometimes Community Action isn't creating another door.It's helping the doors already there connect.
- What we heard
- Housing affordability is severe, services are fragmented, and YCAN still needs deeper Teton-specific input from residents.
- What the plan does
- Uses a limited amount for eviction prevention while investing in a stronger Teton County assessment, with qualitative work planned during 2027.
- How we act
- Provides targeted past-due rent help through One22 referrals while gathering the information needed for future planning.
Sometimes responsible Community Action means acting.Sometimes it means listening longer before deciding what to build.
Sometimes the intervention is a connection.
A Community Action Plan can include direct services. It can also include a community initiative, which looks at a recurring need and asks what organizations, resources, relationships, or systems could work differently together.
In Park County, the immediate service might be rent, transportation, utilities, dental care, or another eligible support. The community initiative asks a bigger question: how can Park County create conditions that better support people staying engaged in recovery?
A service responds to an immediate need.A community initiative works on the conditions around that need.
Both belong in a Community Action Plan.
Most of what works here, we don't own. We just helped it along.
Before we count what's hard, we notice what's working.
Community Action isn't one organization. It's everyone who makes the next step possible.
People said it worked.
In Hot Springs County, every customer who answered our survey was satisfied on every measure.
Help moves in a week, not a month.
Once assistance is approved, the Align Team pays the landlord or utility company that week. Community Action reimburses Align monthly, so the waiting happens on our end instead of a household's.
Four doors, not one.
In Park County, people reached help through One Health Family Resource Coordinators, the Court Supervised Treatment Program, Active in Recovery, and First Stop. Community Action didn't have to be anyone's first phone call.
Neighbors shaped the plan.
Community members gave 121 volunteer hours to the needs assessments in two counties, 13 of them from neighbors who have lived on low incomes.
What's Working: an invitation
Most of what an organization like ours hears is what went wrong. That's useful, and it's also a narrow window on a community. So we're asking a different set of questions, and the answers aren't an application for anything.
- What's working in your life right now?
- Who helped you get there?
- What are you proud of?
- What's one thing that made a difference?
- Who in our community deserves a thank-you?
We'll publish what we learn as Community Action: What's Working — the people and organizations quietly making things better here. If you name someone, we'll make sure they hear it.
We don't judge success by activity alone.
We count households served. We account for every dollar. We track services. Those things matter. But our mission asks for more.
- Did someone stay housed?
- Did someone stay connected to recovery?
- Did help arrive while it could still make a difference?
- Did a partner pathway get easier to navigate?
- Did customers tell us something we need to change?
- Are we learning about the conditions creating the need?
- Resultstell us what happened.
- Customer experiencetells us how it felt to use the system.
- Partnerstell us what they keep seeing.
- Community datatells us whether the larger conditions are changing.
We need all four.
What a year of help looked like.
Yellowstone Country Assistance Network is a Wyoming 501(c)(3) nonprofit and CSBG eligible entity serving Park, Hot Springs and Teton Counties. Its mission is to work alongside communities to change the conditions that create poverty, strengthen local systems, and expand opportunities for future generations. These FY2025 figures are agency-wide, covering every county YCAN served that year. Federal CSBG funds supported eligibility determinations, payments made to landlords and utility companies on households' behalf, and the staff time and community assessments behind them.
The community data showed the pressure. Our program data showed where it became a crisis. In FY2025, YCAN collected information for 60 households representing 119 people across the counties we served.
- 46Rentersof 60 households. 8 were experiencing homelessness; 4 owned their home.
- 49At or below povertyof 60 households lived at or below 100% of the federal poverty guideline.
- 25At half of poverty or lesshouseholds at or below 50% of the poverty guideline.
- 15No incomehouseholds reported no income at all.
Those numbers don't tell us why a particular household needed help. They tell us something about the conditions surrounding the people who reached us.
Where help arrived
For many households, help arrived at the front door: rent. For others it meant keeping the power on, or a safe place to stay while something else got sorted out.
| Eligibility determinations | 116 |
|---|---|
| Rent payments | 105 |
| Utility arrears payments | 17 |
| Temporary housing placements | 11 |
| Substance use counseling supported | 9 |
| Avoided eviction | 105 |
|---|---|
| Avoided utility shutoff | 17 |
| Obtained temporary shelter | 11 |
| Obtained utilities | 1 |
| Improved physical health and well-being | 9 |
| Stopped drug or alcohol use | 9 |
| Stayed drug and alcohol free 90 days | 6 |
| Stayed drug and alcohol free 180 days | 5 |
116 people reached at least one of these outcomes in FY2025 — housing kept, the power still on, a recovery that held.
Behind each one is a landlord who waited, a partner who made the call, a case worker who stayed with it, and a person who kept going.
Those are outcomes worth protecting. And our mission asks us to keep going.Not only "How do we pay the next rent bill?" but "What conditions keep bringing households to this point?"
See how this compares with last year
When the numbers change, we ask why
| Measure | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Households | 75 | 60 |
| Individuals | 157 | 119 |
| Eligibility determinations | 156 | 116 |
| Rent payments | 110 | 105 |
| Utility arrears payments | 9 | 17 |
| Temporary housing placements | 6 | 11 |
Fewer households isn't automatically good or bad news. Before we decide what it means, we ask:
- Did the need change?
- Did another community resource start meeting it?
- Did funding change?
- Did our referral pathway change?
- Did people hit a barrier reaching us?
- What are partners and customers telling us?
Data starts the conversation. It doesn't finish it.
A closer look by county
Hot Springs County, FFY2025
21 people avoided eviction against a target of 8, every outcome target was met, and customers were 100% satisfied on every measure. These are part of the agency-wide totals above. The county's allocation reached about 12 of roughly 517 income-eligible households. Source: 2026 Hot Springs County Community Needs Assessment.
Teton County, first months
7 households, 12 people, mostly helped with housing stability. Teton County services began in FY2026, so they aren't in the FY2025 totals. These numbers are still too small to draw countywide conclusions. Source: 2026 Teton County CSBG Supplemental Report.
FY2026 results (October 2025 through September 2026) will be posted here after the program year closes and the numbers are reviewed by the Tripartite Board. FY2026 is the first year that includes Teton County.
Trust is built on purpose.
People trust Community Action with things that matter — this month's rent, a recovery that's just getting started, a family's footing. That trust isn't assumed. It's built, and it's checked.
Every Community Action Eligible Entity is measured each year against 58 national standards for how this work should be done: how the board governs, how money is handled, how communities are asked, and how results are reported. For the year ending September 30, 2025, we met 55 of them, with seven of nine categories at 100%.
- 55 of 58Standards metNational organizational standards for Community Action Eligible Entities.
- 7 of 9Categories at 100%Including community assessment, strategic planning, and how we report results.
- 1 in 3Board seatsAt least a third of our governing board are neighbors with low incomes, chosen by their communities.
- 3Counties, one staff memberWhich is why partnership isn't a preference here. It's the whole model.
The standards matter because the trust matters.
The winter the help didn't run out.
A budget is a set of choices. It can be changed when the choice stops fitting.
That year's plan set aside money for a case manager position at a partner organization. The position didn't move forward. Rather than leave the money sitting in a line item, the Tripartite Board redirected it into direct rent help on a sliding scale, so the same dollars could reach more Park County households.
Nobody knew yet what kind of winter was coming. At the Cody airport, the temperature dropped below zero on at least 18 days between November and March. Fourteen of them were in February alone, half the month. The coldest reading was −19°F on January 20. On February 18 the high never made it above zero.
A winter like that is exactly when assistance money has usually run out.Because of a decision made back in the fall, this time it hadn't.
| October 2024 | $5,793 |
|---|---|
| November 2024 | $6,401 |
| December 2024 | $13,314 |
| January 2025 | $6,394 |
| February 2025 | $6,193 |
| March 2025 | $803 |
Paid directly to landlords and utility companies on households' behalf, never as cash. From YCAN's FY2025 CSBG invoices, rounded to the nearest dollar. Temperatures: NOAA daily records, Cody Airport.
Help was still arriving in February, through the coldest stretch of the winter.
Winter ends. What we learn from it shouldn't.
The Community Action Listening Project.
Most community surveys ask you to rate a list of problems. This one doesn't. You can't help someone until you understand their world, and a scale of one to five doesn't tell us anything about yours.
So we ask what actually happened. Where you got stuck. What you almost got but didn't. How many places you had to call before anyone answered. What finally helped, and who. That last part matters as much as the rest.
It's open all year rather than every third year, because conditions don't wait for our assessment cycle. Three ways in, depending on what you have to tell us — your own experience, what you see happening around you, or what you see from inside an organization that serves people here.
This is not an application. It won't start one,and it won't affect any help you're getting.
- A few minutes, and you can skip any question
- You don't have to give your name
- Nothing is published without your permission
- Open to everyone in Park, Hot Springs and Teton Counties
Prefer paper? Call (833) 444-9923 and we'll get a copy to you. Cards are also at partner offices, the library, and other spots around the three counties.
What we changed because of what we learned.
- Households were waiting on the CSBG reimbursement cycle. The Align Team now pays approved assistance weekly and Community Action reimburses Align monthly, so the delay sits with us rather than with a household facing a shut-off notice.
- Referrals through a general help center declined, so YCAN focused Park County support where partners see people repeatedly: treatment and recovery.
- Our 2026 customer survey mostly reached Park County recovery participants. For 2027, we're building a consistent way to offer the survey in every county, after help has been provided.
The next assessment starts with you.
What's working? Who should we thank? Tell us first. If you see a pattern that keeps getting people stuck, tell us that too — patterns are what we bring to our partners.
A note on what we can and can't take on. If you had a hard experience with another organization, we're sorry — and that organization is the right place to raise it, with a supervisor, their complaint process, or their board. Community Action doesn't investigate or decide complaints about another organization's staff, services, or decisions. We'd rather be honest about that than take something on and go quiet on you.
If you live outside Park, Hot Springs, or Teton County, dial 211 — that's the fastest way to find what's available where you are.
This page is updated as assessments are completed and reviewed by the Tripartite Board.