Friend,

We did it! We fought so hard, and it paid off: We won important protections in the Heroes Act—the latest coronavirus relief package in Congress—which will provide direct relief to Michigan’s 13th district, one of the hardest-hit districts in the country.

Check out this short video, where I discuss what we achieved together:

Thanks to your support for universal access to clean water during the pandemic, we got the Water is a Human Right Act passed as part of the bill!

If passed by the Senate, this bill would:

• Ban future water shutoffs
• Require water reconnections for our neighbors who’ve lost access to water because they are too poor to pay (outrageously high) water bills.
• Authorize $1.5 billion in grants to help low-income people pay their water bills.

If passed by the Senate, this will be absolutely transformative as it gets implemented here in Michigan and all around the country. I’m deeply thankful for my partner in Congress on water rights and many other issues: Michigan’s Rep. Debbie Dingell. We know that washing our hands is one of the best ways to stay safe from the coronavirus, so the stakes are extra high right now.

But let’s not forget: Lack of access to clean water was a crisis even before the pandemic, affecting 1 in 20 families nationwide, as I discussed with other advocates on The Appeal recently:

This victory is thanks to incredible water warrior activists on the ground, who’ve been demanding for years that water be treated as the human right it is. As Grace Lee Boggs said, transformative change doesn’t come from the halls of Congress, but when the people demand it at the grassroots level. Movements start in the streets!

There’s one local water warrior I especially want to uplift: Mama Lila Cabbil, a tireless advocate and co-founder of the People’s Water Board Coalition and the Detroit People’s Platform. She taught me about the structural racism of water shutoffs, and touched so many people’s lives. She reminded us that we’re all in this together—and we must work together to build solutions rooted in equity and justice. When she passed away last year, I was honored to memorialize her on the floor of Congress.

In honor of her activism and her legacy, we’ve started a Mama Lila Cabbil Campaign Fellowship to empower young people in Michigan’s 13th district to learn more about civic engagement and organize their neighborhoods. Thank you, Mama Lila and other water warriors!

I also want to mention other crucial provisions in the Heroes Act that got included due to our efforts:

We secured nearly $10 billion for Michigan and the municipalities of our 13th congressional district this year (and over $7 billion next year). Our local governments are getting us through this pandemic, but without nearly enough federal guidance or support, they’re facing major layoffs and cuts to services on which we all rely.

We wanted to get local governments the aid they need, and the Heroes Act we passed in the House provides support for every state and local government in the country. We also fought hard for and won 100% reimbursement from FEMA for cities’ first responder costs, and a $200 billion Heroes’ Fund to ensure frontline workers receive the hazard pay their sacrifices have earned them.

Now Senate Republicans must pass the Heroes Act. Michigan’s 13th district—and impoverished communities around the country—literally cannot wait.

And the fight doesn’t stop there. The Heroes Act does a lot of good, but it doesn’t go far enough. In particular, it failed to include a major piece of policy we’ve been fighting for: recurring, direct payments to everyone in this country.

While prior coronavirus relief packages have bailed out major corporations—helping billionaires get richer off our tax dollars—they didn’t provide enough support for individual people who are struggling.

A one-time payment of $1,200 is not enough (and many people haven’t even gotten that check yet!), which is why I’m continuing to fight to include $2,000 monthly payments in any final agreement and in the next piece of coronavirus legislation. We need to get money directly in our neighbors’ pockets, rather than forcing them to go through bureaucratic hoops. That’s why our Automatic Boost to Communities Act calls for prepaid debit cards, especially for the 25% of Americans who are underbanked or unbanked, and thus have to use predatory check-cashing services.

I’m going to keep raising hell and fighting for what we all deserve. Here’s a photo from last week in Washington, D.C. after voting for the Heroes Act, wearing with a mask from my sister-in-service Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

More than ever, this is the time for us to come together and fight back against the corporate greed and racism at the root of our society’s broken systems. I want you to know that you have power to make change happen. Together, we’re going to win the world we need. We’re not going to back down.

Thank you for your partnership, and please stay safe.

Rashida