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It’s in the name: the safety net is there to “catch” people when they need help. This has been a core, critical role of our organization from our founding in 1913, one that endures.
With our recently adopted strategic plan and refined focus areas we add emphasis on strengthening these systems, namely but not limited to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). These government programs must both enable Ohioans to meet basic needs and operate in the most effective and efficient way.
Aiming for an accountable, effective safety net
Our goal is to strengthen Ohio’s public benefit systems so people can meet basic needs and move toward stability.
Thoughtful policy, including design and implementation, enables government systems to provide the right help at the right time to the people and families who need support and allow the public and private community agencies who ultimately do the work and connect people with these public programs to function.
Our role to explain, educate, and provide analysis
For more than a century, our organization has stood at the place where community-based organizations come face to face with the impact of policy and most acutely felt when policy change happens. While we are not a direct service organization, we take seriously our role as a communicator of complex and complicated policy change.
Many of our community partners are the front door for those seeking assistance through safety net programs.
Making policy and data digestible and accessible helps these organizations connect their clients to safety net programs. These partners hold the daunting position of staying current on the ever-changing policy landscape around the health and human services safety net.
Medicaid: managing increasing complexity
It is critical that safety net programs remain available and accessible to those who are in need. Medicaid serves nearly 3 million Ohioans and is a lifeline for people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to health coverage. It is a complex public program, and it is important that the scope of Medicaid doesn’t make navigation too difficult.
As more changes are coming in the Medicaid program—the addition of work requirements for those who are eligible through the Medicaid expansion—it’s important to provide plain language information and guidance on how the changes will impact enrollees, how community-based organizations can help people and families navigate the changes. Unique to our organization, we must maintain and strengthen a feedback loop with policymakers across levels and branches of government so that they understand the direct impact of policy change.
We have seen this play out acutely, as it relates to SNAP and federal level policy changes that have dictated how the state must now operate the program. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made myriad changes to health and human services policy, among other issues.
SNAP: urgent policy analysis and advocacy
Changes related to SNAP include expanding work requirements to a broader range of enrollees and significantly increasing the proportion of SNAP costs bore by the states.
SNAP changes began to play out almost immediately after the bill was signed into law in the summer of 2025. This has led to increased demand onthat Ohio’s counties to process eligibility changes and the associated administrative steps for both county workers and SNAP enrollees/applicants. The result is a decline in SNAP enrollees, across the country, including in Ohio.
There are 60,000 fewer children on SNAP than at this time last year, even with no changes to SNAP eligibility for children—a decline almost certainly due to the increased administrative complexity caused by the One Big Beautiful Bill changes to SNAP.
Our continued role is to track, understand, and explain how these changes are felt in communities. This, as well as ensuring our policymaker audience is informed about the effect their decisions are having.
TANF: a safety net cautionary tale
There is no better example of how our organization tracks the performance of a public program over time than the evolution, or more accurately, the devolution of TANF.
Federal welfare reform in 1996 drastically changed the functioning of cash assistance in this country, switching from an entitlement program to a block grant. Shifting from general assistance where everyone eligible could enroll to the TANF model to the block grant allocation from the federal government has left TANF funding static at 1996 levels.
An added time limit and a stringent, ineffective work requirement, brings us to TANF today: fewer than 60,000—around 58,000 in May 2026—Ohioans are receiving any cash assistance.
Nationally, TANF now only reaches 21 out of 100 families living in poverty, down from 68 in 1996.
We diligently monitor and share the status of TANF. With this education typically comes our warning against designing other programs with similar elements—such as work requirements. We have worked with partners at the federal, state and local levels to explore ways to improve TANF with a goal of truly making progress on reducing poverty. There is so much work yet to do.
People need systems that work
- Community Solutions will identify administrative reforms that improve service while reducing waste and inefficiency.
- Basic public systems should be reliable, understandable, and properly administered.
- Success should be measured by improved stability, workforce participation, and reduced long-term reliance on government assistance.
Community Solutions’ three focus areas—poverty + the safety net; progress across the lifespan and; tax + revenue policy—weave together the work that we’ve long been engaged in. Taken together, they both encompass (and expand) our perspective on Ohio's challenging health and human services landscape.
We want to continue to make systems work for people in need, acknowledge who is left behind by policy choices, and assess what resources are needed to make Ohio a better place for us all.
