When I applied for an internship with the Coalition on Human Needs in February, I was expecting my experience to be slightly different than what it has been. I knew I wanted to do advocacy and non-profit work and gain experience in the realm of policy. I was eager to work in D.C. and join a network of people advocating for those facing issues that I cared about. Today, I write this from my bedroom in Baltimore, Maryland, working from my laptop at home like I have been since March. COVID-19 has brought upon a situation that I can imagine almost no one was expecting.
Archives: Voices
CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship August 13, 2020
Zeroes Edition. This week’s stats show some high numbers – millions more COVID-19 cases, billions of dollars in unemployment benefits now expired for 3 weeks, and 19 million children in households threatened with eviction and hunger – but a lot of zeroes. These convey the likely impact of President Trump’s executive actions, at least in the next couple of months.
West Virginians to bear brunt if Census count deadline isn’t extended
CHARLESTON, W. Va. — With the Trump administration cutting the U.S. census count short by a month, advocates for families say West Virginians will pay the price, unless lawmakers pass a pandemic-relief bill that extends the deadline. In 2016, West Virginia received almost $7 billion based on census results, according to Deborah Weinstein, executive director for the Coalition on Human Needs. She said it’s critical census takers get more time to count; otherwise the state will lose millions of dollars in vital funding over the next ten years.
CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship August 6, 2020
How much more will people lose before Trump and McConnell provide help? The House enacted its HEROES bill on May 15. The Senate has not yet acted; its majority caucus is divided. Since the House acted, the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. has soared from 1.4 million to 4.8 million. We have gained back some of the jobs lost, but are still at least 13 million below the February peak, and now, as weekly unemployment claims have well exceeded 1 million for 20 weeks, job growth sharply slowed in July. About 30 million jobless people are now going without the $600/week extra unemployment compensation, and that is making it much harder for them to pay rent or buy food.
COVID-19 relief: North Dakota groups push Congress to move more quickly
BISMARCK, N.D. – As COVID-19 cases continue to spike in North Dakota, social service support groups are asking the U.S. Senate to act quickly before its August recess and approve more emergency assistance. Many North Dakotans are on the brink of hunger and homelessness because of COVID-19-related shutdowns, according to Cheryl Ann Kary – executive director of the Sacred Pipe Resource Center, which provides services to Native American families in the Bismarck area.
With $600 UI benefits lapsed, MomsRising members, Senators call for extension
Sharmah Wardlaw of Atlanta, Georgia worked as a concierge at a local convention center, a job she had held for 15 years, when the coronavirus pandemic set in. Suddenly, no conventions, no visitors – and for Wardlaw, no work. She relied in part on the additional $600 in federal unemployment benefits – payments that ended last month. “Without the $600 a week boost, we won’t even be able to keep up with the rent,” she said. “We are praying that Congress extends it. Otherwise we don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Human needs advocates compare Senate’s HEALS Act to House’s HEROES Act – and find it sorely lacking
As millions of Americans lose access to additional unemployment benefits, face the dire threat of eviction and homelessness, and increasingly grapple with food insecurity, advocates from across Iowa and the U.S. last week came together to call upon the Senate to move quickly to pass robust legislation in response the COVID-19 crisis. The Facebook Live event, hosted by Tax March Iowa, included Sister Richelle Friedman, CHN’s Director of Public Policy and an Iowa native
CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship July 31, 2020
Eyes Upon the Senate Edition. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) let the clock run out on the $600/week Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (PUC) and the federal moratorium on evictions. As you read this, neither are in place. It will take perhaps two weeks for states to reprogram to restore a flat level of PUC; months more to try for a certain percentage of prior earnings, as the Senate “HEALS” Act eventually calls for. Now, McConnell is abandoning the $1T HEALS Act to try to get a bill that provides $200/week in extra pandemic aid, and does nothing else – no help for those facing eviction, no state/local aid, no SNAP increase, no Medicaid funds, no cash stimulus payments, no vaccine research, treatment, or testing funds, no child care, no paid leave.
What We Are Called To Do, in a Screenshot
CHN’s Deborah Weinstein listened to the funeral service for Representative John Lewis through the Washington Post website. Noting the website’s stories and op-ed columns that shared space with the civil rights icon’s service, she writes that “the view gathered up our moment: the long and courageous march towards justice that John Lewis urges us to continue, the forces that stand against the full expression of democracy, and the ongoing harm that such injustice inflicts.”
Pandemic brings food insecurity to more Utah families
As Congress debates a new coronavirus stimulus bill, more people in Utah are facing food insecurity as the economy struggles with the effects of the pandemic. Groups that offer social services say some families who were previously able to provide healthy meals will see a double whammy at the end of this week. That’s when the enhanced federal unemployment assistance is set to expire, leaving many households unable to pay rent.
National Group Letter Seeking Pandemic Relief for Effective Response to Our Health and Economic Crisis
On Tuesday, July 28, 86 national organizations sent a message to every member of the House and Senate: Agree upon legislation that meets our people’s urgent health and economic needs, while protecting democratic mainstays including the right to vote and be counted in the Census despite the pandemic.
One Person, No Vote: The Bad Things that Could Happen on Nov. 3 and How to Prevent Them
November 3, even if it proceeds as scheduled, is likely to bring bureaucratic snafus and foreseeable chaos unfolding on a hundred different fronts at once, in a thousand voting precincts—all of which will leave the U.S. with its most uncertain, disputed result in a lifetime.