Diapers are unaffordable for many families. Now states are looking to Medicaid for help.

On a sweltering afternoon in June, Angelia Victorian waited in the parking lot of a Head Start preschool in Fremont, California, with precious cargo in the trunk of her car — a box of Size 3 diapers. Victorian, a social worker for the Alameda County Health Department for the last 16 years, was waiting to meet a young mother of two to hand her the diapers and check on the family’s well-being. “Some families don’t have a home, so we have to meet them wherever they’re at, whether it’s at McDonald’s or Walmart in the parking lot,” said Victorian.

With rising costs, more families in California and across the U.S., especially those with very young children, are struggling to cover day-to-day expenses.

Parents that Victorian works with have three major pressures: “Housing, food and diapers, in that order,” she said. Moments later, Diola Lucero, 30, a single mom from Newark, California, walked out of the preschool holding her two children. Having previously been homeless for about three years — moving her family from an RV to a car to an emergency shelter, and now living in Section 8 housing — Lucero has sought diapers from a distribution program in the county since her now-4-year-old son was born.

With Lucero’s family living out of state, the county support is her only safety net. Without enough diapers, she says, she’ll have to push her 2-year-old daughter to potty train because of the high cost. “To be honest, when I go into the store, I don’t look .