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PUBLIC BENEFITS JUSTICE UPDATE
OCTOBER 2024
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What is Meaningful Community Engagement?
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In 2021, our team began a community engagement effort called Community-Driven Policies and Practices (CDPP). We partnered with community members across the country to facilitate a series of power-building sessions in Baltimore, Las Vegas, and Tribal Nations in the Pacific Northwest. Our goal was to create a safe, inspiring space for people experiencing poverty to dream up policies with the potential to deliver economic justice, and then strategize how to advance them. Using CDPP as a case study, this report explores best practices for engaging people with lived experience of poverty in nonprofit advocacy. Place-based projects led by a national organization can expand the tools available to local groups to make large-scale policy change. The value that national organizations can provide community members, however, can be stunted by long-standing norms within nonprofits and philanthropy. The entire system underpinning nonprofit advocacy needs reform to sustain efforts to create valuable experiences for community members that inspire them to continue fighting for important policy changes.
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| Anticipated High Child Poverty Can Be Addressed in Upcoming Tax Package |
| The United States Census Bureau releases poverty data annually, and in prior years, the child poverty rate declined dramatically due to the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC). In an upcoming tax package, lawmakers can expand the CTC again and make other policy decisions to benefit children and families. |
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| Hidden Hunger: Food Insecurity and Challenges to Access in the Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Communities |
| The Asian American (AA) and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) communities make up the most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse groups in the United States. As a result, the AA and NHPI populations often face distinctive challenges that require thoughtfully tailored services, such as addressing food insecurity. |
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National, State and Local Spotlights
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Community Partnership Group Speaks to Administrators Nationwide about Amplifying Voices with Lived Experience
The Community Partnership Group (CPG) recently presented at the 2024 Economic Mobility & Well-Being Conference, an annual conference organized by the American Public Human Services Association for professionals dedicated to enhancing human services programs. During their session, the CPG effectively engaged with federal, state, and local government agencies overseeing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, highlighting the critical importance of involving individuals with lived experience in policymaking. Their presentation emphasized best practices for co-creating policies, focusing on building authentic relationships, adopting anti-racist approaches, and fostering trust to ensure inclusive and community-driven decision-making.
Federal Court Finds Major Issues with TennCare’s Deloitte-Operated Automated Eligibility System
At the end of August, a federal court handed down a major victory for Medicaid enrollees in Tennessee, including people with disabilities, in the case A.M.C. v. Smith. The detailed decision describes pervasive flaws in Tennessee’s Medicaid program that harm access to health care for state residents with low incomes. These flaws included significant issues with the state’s Deloitte-operated automated eligibility system and the notices it generates, as well as barriers to legally required hearings for people whose coverage was wrongfully terminated. You can read more about one mother’s experience with these issues in this article.
Kalamazoo, MI Launching Prescription Cash Program for Expectant Mothers and Birthing People in 2025
In 2025, Rx Kids, a cash prescription program for expectant mothers and newborns, will expand to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Started in Flint, Michigan in January 2024 and funded with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) state revenue dollars and philanthropic funding, the program provides unconditional cash to help parents with costs during their child’s first year of life.
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Key Blog Posts and Publications
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SEPTEMBER 24, 2024 | EDDIE MARTIN JR.
Reflections on President Johnson’s War on Poverty in Light of the Recent Census Bureau Report
A major shortcoming of the War on Poverty was its inability to fully address the intersection of racial injustice and economic inequity. The failure to advance bold solutions such as guaranteed incomes or large-scale systemic reforms in housing, law enforcement, education, and civil rights enforcement has meant that poverty, particularly for communities of color, persists.
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AUGUST 23, 2024 | JESSE FAIRBANKS
Too Many People Can’t Rent with Housing Choice Vouchers. Will Switching From Vouchers to Cash Help?
The Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to replace vouchers with cash in some places. While this change signals trust in benefit recipients, it won’t right the imbalance of systemic power between landlords and tenants that make housing choice vouchers so unreliable. To be truly transformative, the pilots need to be combined with strengthened protections for tenants nationwide.
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AUGUST 23, 2024 | SUZANNE WIKLE
2023 Health Insurance Rates Likely to Fall After Recent Record Highs
This year’s census release of health insurance data was difficult to predict. Health insurance rates in 2023 held essentially steady, except for children; that population saw an increase in uninsurance. Important policy choices, including enhanced premium tax credits for Marketplace coverage and a continuous open enrollment period for people earning less than 150 percent of the poverty level, made Marketplace insurance more affordable and accessible.
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AUGUST 22, 2024 | FIONA LU & ASHLEY BURNSIDE
New TANF Pilot Allows States to Help Families Achieve Their Goals in Place of Outdated Work Measure
The Fiscal Responsibility Act authorized new pilots in the TANF program for up to five states to have their success measured not by the process-focused work participation rate, but by the outcomes tied to earnings and family stability and well-being.
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Isha Weerasinghe, associate director of mental health and well-being, is joining the Public Benefits Justice team. She’s looking forward to collaborating more closely with “the incredible, knowledgeable members on the team” (her words, not ours 😉)! Her latest publication, jointly written with Suma Setty, senior policy analyst on the Immigration and Immigrant Families team, is entitled Policy Framework for Immigrant Mental Health. Informed by partners working in immigrant mental health across the country, the framework intends to provide a unifying set of goals across actors and movements to improve immigrant mental health and well-being in the United States. It serves as an advocacy roadmap for immigration and mental health advocates who work at the local, state, and federal levels, as well as direct service organizations interested in pursuing policy advocacy. Welcome Isha!
Rricha deCant, CLASP’s director of legislative affairs, is currently serving as the Interim Director for the Public Benefits Justice team. She will manage the team over the next few months and help strategize on our goals and priorities as we head into 2025. Rricha brings experience from her time on Capitol Hill, where she worked on legislation related to social welfare programs, immigration, and labor policy. Rricha also worked in children’s advocacy at First Focus, where she primarily worked on child welfare and immigration policy. Rricha is originally from California and enjoys baking and crafts when she is not working or chasing after her 2-year-old. Welcome Rricha!
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