Archives: Voices

CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship November 5, 2021

The Build Back Better, Please! edition. Covid-19 laid bare a host of vulnerabilities that have been holding our nation back for a long time. We saw shocking disparities in sickness and death by race and ethnicity. We saw billionaires pile up more than $2.1 trillion in new wealth during the pandemic, while unemployment and hardship spiked for millions of Americans – again, disproportionately Black, brown, Indigenous, poor. Our institutions are far more fragile than we thought. Amid lockdowns, schools did not serve the poorest children adequately. Health facilities were overburdened. Too many of our aging lost their lives in nursing homes; there was not enough home care for those who wanted to live in the community.  

CHN letter to All U.S. House Members Urging Passage of Build Back Better and Infrastructure Proposals

The Coalition on Human Needs this week delivered a letter to every member of the U.S. House urging them to vote YES on the Build Back Better Act (H.R. 5376) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (H.R. 3684).  “Our nation needs these investments in our future,” the letter states. “You have the historic opportunity to redress our vulnerabilities by voting for Build Back Better and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.”   

Parents speak: How the expanded Child Tax Credit makes their lives easier 

ParentsTogether Action, a family advocacy organization which represents 2.5 million parents across the U.S., is collecting stories from moms across the country about how the new, expanded Child Tax Credit has made their lives easier. The group is turning these stories into professionally produced videos. Here are six snippets. 

CHN’s Podcast Episode 6: Undocumented and Unafraid: Student Advocates Speak Out for Immigration Reform

With many students in school this fall amidst the ongoing stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, many students and their families are also burdened with additional anxieties and stresses associated with being undocumented. These additional challenges could include not having the proper documentation for certain opportunities such as federal student aid, living with the fear of deportation, or dealing with anti-immigrant rhetoric often circulated in political discourse.

President Biden’s Historic Build Back Better Framework Will Help Millions of Americans 

The nation needs to Build Back Better. President Biden has recognized the urgent need to invest in our future, to lift millions of children and their families out of poverty, extend health care to millions who now cannot afford it, protect the aging and people with disabilities through expanded home care, expand education at all levels, protect against climate disaster, and provide affordable rental housing to hundreds of thousands of households. The Build Back Better framework announced today makes historic investments in all these areas.

CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship October 22, 2021

The Americans-are-falling-behind edition. Rents are late and evictions are looming. Two-thirds of parents say their kids have fallen behind in school. One in five households say someone in the home has been unable to get medical care for a serious condition. These are but a few of the findings from a new poll conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 

Child Tax Credit advocates: “We’re asking that we keep doing the thing that we knew was right in the first place.” 

Earlier this week, faith leaders gathered near the U.S. Capitol for a 12-hour vigil in support of President Biden’s Build Back Better plan pending in Congress. The “Keep the Faith Vigil” focused on so many issues close to the hearts of human needs advocates: hunger, housing, immigration reform, climate change, paid leave, tax credits for low-income families, home and community-based care, health care, labor rights, and more. 

What is the cost of not passing Build Back Better? 

Kaylen Marie Barker is a ninth-generation West Virginian whose ancestors moved to Appalachia to escape abject poverty. But despite having a master’s degree, Kaylen finds herself living in “generational poverty,” and spends time hunting for pennies in her couch cushions in order to put gas in her car. Kaylen says her state desperately needs President Biden’s Build Back better plan, which would inject billions of dollars into West Virginia’s economy, lift children and families out of poverty, expand health care, and do so much more.

 In their own words: Why recipients and providers of home care say Congress must act 

Last week advocates gathered on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol to conduct a 24-hour vigil, demanding that Congress provide historic, once-in-a-generation federal funding for Medicaid-based Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS). Advocates organized the vigil to push for historic, once-in a-generation federal funding for home and community-based services (HCBS). During the vigil, advocates shared some 2,500 stories from people who work as caregivers or depend on caregivers to live independently.