Meeting Families’ Most Urgent Needs in 2025
When families face a crisis, timing matters. A missed rent payment, an unaffordable childcare bill, or a utility shutoff can quickly unravel stability for a child. That’s why direct financial assistance, also referred to as concrete supports, remains one of the most powerful ways The Villages of Indiana helps families stay together, prevents disruptions, and creates pathways for children to thrive.
In 2025, these supports reached more children and families than ever before.
Throughout the year, The Villages fulfilled 631 concrete support requests, providing $287,595 in direct assistance to families across our programs. These dollars met immediate, essential needs – needs that, if unmet, could have jeopardized a child’s placement, a family’s stability, or a caregiver’s ability to step in during a critical moment.
This support touched nearly every corner of our work, including Foster Care, Family Connection Network, Older Youth Services, Mother-Centered Adoption, Family Preservation, Healthy Families, and the Children’s Village Childcare Center.
Where Families Needed Help Most
The top three areas of need reflect the real pressures families are facing today:
- Childcare: $84,999.93
- Rent/Housing: $71,235.52
- Utilities: $41,914.03
Childcare alone accounted for nearly one-third of all concrete support dollars, and its impact cannot be overstated, especially in light of new Indiana legislation in 2025 affecting the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF).
Recent changes to the CCDF voucher program have increased childcare co-payments for many families and altered eligibility and coverage for some foster families and existing voucher recipients. As a result, caregivers who previously relied on CCDF support are now facing higher out-of-pocket costs or gaps in coverage at a time when affordable childcare is already difficult to secure.
In response, direct financial assistance within Foster Care more than tripled from the previous year, rising from $26,000 in 2024 to $78,500 in 2025, driven almost entirely by childcare support. These funds help foster parents continue to say “yes” to caring for children under the age of five, an age group that is often hardest to place due to the high cost and limited availability of care.
At the Children’s Village Childcare Center, all direct financial assistance in 2025 was dedicated to helping families manage rising childcare co-payments tied to the CCDF changes. This support allows parents to remain employed, maintain income, and continue building stability while ensuring their children receive consistent, high-quality early childhood care during a critical stage of development.
“When we support childcare costs, we’re doing more than covering a bill,” said Shannon Schumacher, President and CEO of The Villages of Indiana. “We’re giving families the stability they need to work, foster parents the ability to welcome young children into their homes, and kids the continuity that is so critical to healthy development.”
Direct financial assistance is more than short-term relief; it is preventive, stabilizing, and trauma-reducing. By easing the burden of childcare, housing, utilities, and other essentials, families can focus on healing, connection, and long-term stability.
Every request fulfilled represents a family that stayed together, a foster parent who could say yes, or a child who remained in a safe, nurturing environment.
We are deeply grateful to the donors, partners, and community members whose generosity makes this work possible. Together, we are strengthening families and building brighter futures for children across Indiana.