John,

Thanks to you, this week the House and Senate both passed a government funding package that supports vulnerable communities―avoiding a government shutdown and even increasing funding in several critical areas.

WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) received a $1 billion funding increase, which will allow the program to avoid a once-in-a-generation crisis of having to place some WIC recipients on waiting lists or turning them away altogether. Had we been unsuccessful in pressuring Congress to act, it is estimated that 2 million parents and young children could have been turned away from WIC by September.¹

This victory for parents and young children is thanks to you.

Congress also made an important increase in funding for rental housing programs―including new vouchers for an estimated 3,000 households, targeted to veterans experiencing homelessness and youth aging out of foster care, along with a big increase in Homelessness Assistance and an important increase for the Native American Housing Block Grant program.

Thursday evening, in his State of the Union address, President Biden made a forceful call for fully funding programs for low-income and working families―and paying for them by making the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.

He contrasted his investments with right-wing proposals to cut taxes for the rich while slashing services and suppressing democracy. The President vowed to stand for voting rights and services Americans need―and so must we.

While we won this week’s round of votes, dangerous policy riders are not going away. Extremists in the Senate pushed us to the brink of a shutdown late last night with attempts to add anti-immigrant policies to the funding package, and these and other policy threats will keep coming back. Thank you for helping us to keep up the fight. Your voice continues to be needed.  

Now, Congress has just two weeks to pass funding bills for education, energy assistance for low-income households, mental health, substance use, and more.

Let’s use the momentum of this week’s funding victories to demand clean year-long funding bills that support vulnerable communities. Donate today!

While we’ve defeated most attempts to insert poison pill policy riders into funding bills, these extremist members are not done. They still want to add poison pill riders that have nothing to do with the budget to pending spending bills, intended to harm immigrants and their families, attack LGBTQIA people, undermine protections against discrimination and diversity training, reduce protections for workers, and rescind important climate protections.

While we won this week’s critical round of funding bills with increases to WIC and housing assistance, we must keep the pressure on Congress to finish the job.

Donate today to fight back against poison pill riders that harm vulnerable communities, and demand clean votes on education, mental health, energy assistance, and more!

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These victories are thanks to many months of activism, which are holding members of Congress accountable to our families and communities.

Thank you for all that you do,

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs

¹ About 2 Million Parents and Young Children Could Be Turned Away From WIC by September Without Full Funding