WACOG Director Highlights Workforce, Housing Priorities for Western Arizona

Veronica Shorr knows the KAWC microphone well. Before she became executive director of the Western Arizona Council of Governments, she co-hosted "What's Up Yuma?" on the Yuma public radio station. She returned to that same program April 3 as the region's top regional planning official, spending 30 minutes with producers Victor Calderón and Jonny Porter laying out where WACOG is directing its workforce and housing dollars, and how Yuma County residents can tap those programs directly.

WACOG, founded in 1971, functions simultaneously as western Arizona's designated Community Action Agency, its Head Start provider, its Area Agency on Aging, and a HUD-certified local housing counseling agency serving La Paz, Mohave, and Yuma counties. That breadth gives it unusual reach: the organization channels federal and state grant dollars across three counties, coordinates with municipal governments whose staffing and budgets cannot support those programs independently, and serves as the regional distributor for Community Development Block Grant funds that Yuma County applies for on a two-year cycle through WACOG's allocation process.

Shorr emphasized two program areas as priorities. On the housing side, WACOG has operated its "A Hand Up Housing Counseling" program since 2010 under HUD certification, offering pre-purchase and post-purchase counseling, foreclosure prevention, and fair housing education through both group classes and one-on-one sessions. The program covers all of western Arizona, from San Luis to Kingman. For residents pursuing homeownership, the first step is an appointment: walk-ins are not accepted, and the intake contact is Julia De Los Reyes at 928-217-7116, with the Yuma office located at 1235 S. Redondo Center Drive, open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

On workforce development, Shorr described WACOG's coordination role linking local employers, particularly in trades and healthcare, with training pipelines built in part through partnerships with Arizona Western College. The model attempts to close the gap between what Yuma County employers say they need and what candidates arriving at job centers are prepared to do. The unresolved question Shorr's appearance raised, but could not fully answer with public data, is which bottleneck is most acute: too few affordable units for workers who take new jobs, wages that remain below what housing costs demand, or program capacity at WACOG itself that limits how many residents can move through workforce and housing services in a given year.

Residents seeking housing assistance or workforce referrals can reach WACOG's main Yuma line at 928-782-1886. The agency's online community survey, active at surveymonkey.com/r/WACOG-SURVEY, also allows residents to flag unmet service needs directly. The full podcast episode remains available at KAWC's website for anyone wanting the longer version of Shorr's programmatic breakdown before making a call.

What to track next: WACOG's quarterly reporting will indicate whether new grant awards are moving into Yuma County, and whether the AWC workforce partnership produces measurable placement numbers. Those figures, more than any single interview, will determine whether Shorr's priorities translate into services Yuma residents can actually access.