Many studies of the well-being of families who have left welfare since 1996 leave out families who are not faring well and have been forced to turn to emergency service providers for help. In response to this gap, the Community Monitoring Project (CMP) examined families who had left welfare since 1996 and sought help from 180 local community agencies such as homeless shelters, food banks, or others. More than 5,200 participants were surveyed, 2,526 of whom were parents with 5,187 children under 18. Findings indicated that work alone was not enough to fend off hardships: one-third were currently unemployed, and 58 percent of employed parents had weekly wages below the poverty line. Children paid a heavy price when their families experienced hardships, including more frequent school changes. Many working families were not receiving the support they needed, such as food stamps, medical coverage, and or child care assistance. Education and access to child care were major factors in determining how families fared after welfare. Families receiving assistance were less likely to face hardships than families not receiving needed assistance such as health coverage and food stamps. Welfare offices played a critical role in determining whether families leaving welfare actually received the supports they needed. Some former welfare recipients were less prepared for work than even current recipients who are often considered the most difficult to employ. (Seven appendices include recommendations for state and federal government action, data collection methods, comparisons with other data sources, characteristics of parents in the study, and the survey used. Contains 33 endnotes.) (KB)