Promoting Access to Work Supports in Rural Areas Lessons from Virginia

This issue brief summarizes Mathematica’s study of Virginia’s Coordinated Economic Relief Centers (CERCs), a comprehensive approach to supporting workers and their families in rural areas by providing the services of many agencies at a one-stop location. The study found that CERCs fell short of what they were intended to accomplish. In some cases, they facilitated access to sources of help in the community, made obtaining services more convenient for some clients, and may have provided more personalized attention. However, they often did not achieve their goal of providing truly integrated services because of resource constraints and unrealistic expectations of what CERCs could accomplish. The brief offers pointers for states considering this approach.