Category Archives: Healthcare

image of the US Capitol with a caption calling on Congress to protect health care

Hey, Congress: Care is What Really Matters

Hey, Congress: Care is What Really Matters

 

Deliberate Distractions Must Not Derail Our Efforts to Protect Health Coverage for Millions of People

Jackalope Labbe
October 29, 2025

 

Every week brings a new wave of confusion regarding health care from the Trump administration. One day, it’s HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. making unfounded claims about over-the-counter painkillers and autism. The next, it’s open skepticism about childhood vaccination schedules. At the same time, the Department of Health and Human Services touts that most people don’t need regular care. The chaos this creates serves a purpose. It is meant to dominate attention and drown out the real story.

Jackalope Labbe, a Sr. Carol Coston Fellow in NETWORK's Young Advocates Leadership Lab (Y.A.L.L.)

Jackalope Labbe

While everyone argues about medical conspiracies, some lawmakers in Congress have worked to dismantle and defund major parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). When public focus is fixed on fringe controversies, it becomes easier for lawmakers to push through such a devastating policy change. While the media churns out headline after headline on the newest baseless claims coming from members of the current administration, Congress is preparing to let the ACA’s enhanced premium tax credits expire.

The ACA’s premium tax credit lowered the cost of health care for millions of people by capping how much we pay for coverage on the ACA marketplace based on our income, making premiums either free or affordable for millions of low- and middle-income families. It is the only way millions of people in the U.S. can afford health care. Without this, insurance companies are surging their rates, leaving us with more expensive, less effective health care.

Since being introduced, the ACA premium tax credits have transformed access to health care in our country. Enrollment in ACA marketplace coverage hit record highs in early 2025, driving the uninsured rate to its lowest level ever. Today, more than 24 million people rely on these tax credits to afford their insurance. An estimated 4.8 million people will lose their health coverage entirely because they can no longer afford it without the premium tax credits.

These aren’t abstract numbers. They represent parents choosing between rent and insulin, young adults aging out of their parents’ plan with nowhere to turn, and rural hospitals forced to close their doors as patient numbers drop.

As frustrating as this political theater feels, anger alone won’t change minds. Our community members echoing misinformation about vaccines or Medicaid aren’t doing so out of hostility. They’re scared. Years of rising costs, confusing bureaucracy, and inaccessible care have left so many feeling alienated. When leaders exploit that fear, it breeds mistrust, making people more vulnerable to conspiracy theories that tell us the system was never meant to help anyway.

If we respond with outrage, we alienate those who could join with us. Empathy does not mean agreeing with misinformation; it means understanding the concerns that fuel it. When we center conversations around shared experiences, we remind each other that health care is a universal issue. Compassion is not weakness; it’s a strategy for rebuilding community.

Much of the misinformation flooding social media targets one of the most vulnerable emotions in the country, a mother’s fear. False claims about medications during pregnancy or routine childhood vaccines being dangerous are designed to strike where the instinct to protect intersects with trust in science. These stories circulate because they sound caring, reframing misinformation as maternal caution rather than political manipulation. This strategy is deliberate.

When fear takes hold, it erodes trust in the healthcare systems families depend on. Instead of feeling supported by doctors and public health agencies, parents feel suspicious of them. This cycle of fear doesn’t just isolate families; it weakens collective confidence in public health, making it easier for lawmakers to justify cuts to the programs that keep those same families healthy.

This government shutdown is not just another budget debate; it’s a turning point. The distractions, conspiracy theories, culture wars, and partisan gridlock are meant to make us forget where we need to focus: keeping health care accessible. This means protecting the ACA, including premium tax credits.

Every phone call to a representative, every conversation educating each other, every show of solidarity helps. The Trump administration may count on division and fatigue, but we can choose to stay centered on what matters. We cannot fall to distrust in uncertain times. We must strive for clarity. While some government officials try to use confusion to take away our care, we can refocus our attention to saving it.

 

Jackalope Labbe is a social work and history major at College of Our Lady of the Elms in Chicopee, MA and a Sr. Carol Coston Fellow in NETWORK’s Young Advocates Leadership Lab (Y.A.L.L).

Present Day Trauma and Old Wounds

Present Day Trauma and Old Wounds

We Need Solidarity Across Communities to Counter the Horrors of the Budget Bill’s Immigration Provisions

Joan F. Neal
June 26, 2025

In responding to the budget reconciliation bill now expected to pass the U.S. Senate this week, NETWORK and Sisters around the country have focused much attention on the calamitous cuts to health care and food programs in the bill, especially as they would go to tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals in the country. This is a worthy focus, given the millions of people whose lives are threatened by this disastrous bill.

Sadly, this is only part of the story. NETWORK has also called attention to the $150 billion this bill allots to terrorizing our communities through scaled up immigrant detention and deportation efforts. The horrific policies and actions under this Administration have drawn much attention in the media.

One recent example is the viral video of Narciso Barranco, a California gardener, being beaten by agents as they arrest him. One of his sons, a Marine who put his life on the line for our country, says he is heartbroken and betrayed. While this violence is happening to specific families, the shockwaves it sends through our communities are palpable. It is also intergenerational. Clearly, we need to realize that no individual, family or community is safe when this level of unchecked militarization descends upon us at such an expanded scale.

For Black people in the U.S., images of masked and armed men snatching people off the streets and disappearing them evoke another horrific chapter in U.S. history, one that is still discernable in the rear-view mirror. Neighbor turned on neighbor along racial lines. There was vigilante justice against the Black community, and, just like today, people were afraid to live their daily lives. The impacts on our communities are comparable in terms of the terror and trauma they spread.

Across the U.S., we should feel real pain watching neighbors, coworkers, friends, and families—including those with legal residency in the U.S.—being hauled away from their homes, workplaces, and loved ones. We need to lean into this empathy and let it draw us into action. Solidarity is our salvation.

We have mustered this widespread solidarity before, the most recent and far-reaching example being the Civil Rights movement, which saw white people—including many Catholic Sisters and clergy—joining protests and marches to decry racial segregation and the denial of civil rights, voting rights, fair housing and more, to Black people – U.S. citizens. The Civil Rights movement is an example of how solidarity across communities can work to counter systemic injustice and lead to societal transformation. This is a lesson we should all remember at this time of turmoil.

So as we act together in resistance to the current push to pass the ‘big, bad’ budget reconciliation bill, we cannot lose sight of the human cost of this terrible, unjust piece of legislation that will provide billions of dollars to continue the violent assaults on immigrants while slashing essential programs for all people across the country who need assistance. Rather, we must once again come together in solidarity so that none of us, no matter who we are, react to the harm of another person without empathy. We must acknowledge that we are all one, human family without exception—as residents of this country, as members of communities, as children of God—and act accordingly.

We shouldn’t need horrors such as these ICE raids or devastating cuts to essential programs to remind us of this oneness, but here we are. Thankfully, protests and other actions in recent weeks have shown encouraging signs that we are still capable of recognizing our shared humanity. Let us pray and act so that these acts of solidarity continue.

Use NETWORK’s Budget Reconciliation Toolkit to take part in our advocacy against this bill.

This Advent, Remember the Promises

This Advent, Remember the Promises

Mary J. Novak
December 20, 2023

Read NETWORK’s Advent 2023 reflections here!

Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 24.

2 Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16
Ps 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29
Rom 16:25-27
Lk 1:26-28

The Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent speak beautifully of God’s promises. Time and again, God delivers great things, and people rejoice at these wonders. God is good, and God is faithful. 

This year, NETWORK had experience with keeping promises and remaining faithful.  

Too often, this has taken the form of making sure Congress did not slash funding to vital human needs programs including SNAP and WIC, even after promising not to in the deal averting a government shutdown.  

A few but powerful extremist Members of Congress called for cuts that would have harmed millions of people in the U.S. by jeopardizing their access to food, housing, and healthcare. And worse, they proposed these cuts as part of their demands to avert a government shutdown. Shutting down the government would have harmed millions more across the U.S. and disproportionately harmed Black and Brown communities. 

We lament the sin of indifference toward our neighbors and communities these cuts would harm. We also lament the dangerous brinkmanship that sees shutting down the government as an acceptable bargaining tool. This approach is corrosive to the very fabric of our democracy, and worse, those who engage in this practice seem to know it. 

Amidst these trials, we also saw beautiful reminders of the faithfulness of God, in our own NETWORK Advocates. Justice-seekers from across the country gathered throughout this year as part of NETWORK’s Thriving Communities campaign to call on Congress to pass a moral budget. Rallies in Erie, Pennsylvania and Youngstown, Ohio, as well as on Long Island and Capitol Hill made the appeal for “Care Not Cuts.”  You joined together and spoke out, and you continue to beautifully model your faithful commitment to the common good. 

The ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise is Jesus, and the Gospel reading this Sunday finds the angel announcing to Mary that she would bear a son. Just as God’s faithfulness resulted in the creation of a family, the Holy Family, so the faithfulness of NETWORK Advocates has allowed countless families to flourish with the assistance they urgently need.  

Call to Action 

So far, the dedication of NETWORK Advocates has paid off in protecting vital human needs programming. But we must stay alert because the human needs programs we are called to care about are still very much at risk. Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is not finalized till January. 

TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress to keep their promise and fund this vital program. 

 

Build Anew Series – Health Care

Build Anew Series — Part 8
Health Care

Virginia Schilder
November 17, 2023
Welcome back to our Build Anew Series, with weekly posts covering the people, policies, and values at the heart of the issues we work on. This week, we’re talking about health care, and the dangerous Medicaid “unwinding” going on in many states.   

In 1966, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death.” These words still ring true in the United States, where many die each year because of a lack of access to health care. Millions of people in the U.S. are uninsured — a number that is rising with the ongoing Medicaid “unwinding” (more on this below) — and even more cannot afford the cost of needed medicine or health services. This “injustice in health” is felt most strongly by people of color, low-income families, immigrants, disabled people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community who, because of structural barriers to health, face lower life expectancy, higher mortality rates (especially maternal mortality rates), and higher rates of chronic diseases.

Access to health care is a fundamental human right that all people deserve as a function of their dignity. The Catholic tradition is emphatic that no person’s life is of greater worth or value than another’s — meaning that it is a grave moral wrong when people with wealth have privileged access to needed health care, medications, and treatments. Our families should not have to choose between life-saving medical care, and putting food on the table or paying the rent.

The COVID-19 pandemic made acutely clear the reality that our health is tied together. By building anew our health care system, we can improve the wellbeing of our society as a whole.

Present Realities

We have seen too many family members, friends, and neighbors die from a lack of care and critical medicines. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, more than one out of 10 adults in the U.S. knew at least one friend or family member who had died without needed medical treatment because they were unable to pay for it. For people of color, that number is one out of five. Let that sink in.

This is unconscionable — especially in a nation as wealthy as the U.S. Everyone deserves access to health care and prescription medications, but our sinful lack of affordable, comprehensive health insurance and the pharmaceutical industry’s exploitative behavior blocks access to needed medicines and care. It’s no surprise that the leading cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. is medical bills. The soaring costs of health insurance and medical bills, and the egregious raising of prices on needed everyday medicines, reflect an immoral effort to profit from our universal need to be taken care of when we are sick—or to simply live with chronic conditions.

We also deserve the time to heal from illness and to care for sick loved ones and children without risk of losing our jobs or critical income — which means that paid sick days and medical leave are indispensable. According to the Center for American Progress, the U.S. is the only “industrialized” nation that does not guarantee paid sick days and family and medical leave. This failure to guarantee paid medical leave most acutely impacts lower-income families and the communities who are already most vulnerable in our society.

The U.S. suffers from immoral health disparities, which the COVID-19 pandemic made worse. Black, Latinx, and Native Americans became sick with COVID and died at higher rates than white people across the U.S. But even before the pandemic, because of systemic racism, people of color in this country have long suffered higher rates of mortality and disease (including heart disease) and lower life expectancy than white Americans. A particularly urgent example of these disparities is the Black maternal mortality crisis. Adverse health outcomes are also closely tied to poverty, which is one of the most significant social determinants of physical and mental health.

In addition to one’s ability to access health care, socioeconomic factors like housing, employment status, incarceration, food security, environmental safety, and education all determine a person’s health. This underscores how health care justice is a comprehensive issue that requires accessible and affordable health care, but also justice and transformation across multiple racial, social, and economic dimensions.

Racial and class health disparities are not only unjust and immoral, but they harm everyone. The pandemic made even clearer how our health is tied together: we are all put at risk when any of us is without insurance, access to affordable care, or the ability to take off work when sick or caring for a sick loved one. To end health inequities and promote our common well-being, we must build our unjust healthcare system anew, and ensure that each of us has what we need to best care for our bodies.

Facts and Figures on Health Care in the U.S.
Lived Experience

Maura, the second daughter of Joe and Rita McGrath of Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, was born with Down syndrome. Now 17 years old, Maura continues to be the blessing her parents have always known her to be. In addition to Down syndrome, Maura is nonverbal and has been diagnosed with autism. As a minor living with disabilities, Maura qualifies for Medicaid benefits. Even though Joe and Rita both work, the cost of Maura’s healthcare is too expensive for their family to afford on their own.

An integral part of Maura’s wellbeing is the care Maura receives from her beloved home health aide Williamina. Taking care of Maura is a full-time job and looking after her became more difficult for Rita after fighting cancer. Additionally, Joe has Parkinson’s disease. Medicaid provided the necessary funds for the McGraths to hire assistance.

In addition to a home health aide, Maura needs eight different medications, medical equipment and supplies (such as her wheelchair and diapers), and frequent doctor appointments. Medicaid covers the cost of these needs. Without Medicaid, the McGrath family would be in financial ruin. The cost of Maura’s medicine alone would be several hundred dollars every month. These are expenses that the McGraths, and many families in similar situations, would be unable to afford without the help of Medicaid.

The principles of Catholic Social Justice teach us that all human life has value. Cutting Medicaid benefits would take away critical healthcare that Maura and many other people deserve. Healthcare is a human right, not a privilege. Medicaid caps or any cut in Medicaid benefits would prevent people from accessing healthcare that is critical to their survival. The McGrath family deserves the peace of mind that comes with knowing they can provide care for their daughters. We are one another’s keeper and Medicaid provides access to care every human is entitled to.

Adapted from text written by Emma Tacke, NETWORK Grassroots Mobilization Associate  

Our Values

The Catholic tradition affirms that each person has a right to the care their bodies need to thrive. The right to access care when you get sick, the medicine and support you need to live with chronic conditions, and the preventative care to keep you healthy, are human rights that we all need and deserve.

Pope Francis says, “Health is not a consumer good, but rather a universal right, and therefore access to healthcare services cannot be a privilege.” The Catholic faith proclaims the ultimate worth of life as infinitely more important than profit—thereby condemning the egregious immorality of over-pricing and profiting off of life-giving medicines and health care. Access to medical services should never be contingent on a person’s ability to pay. At the center of the Catholic faith is the belief that all lives are of equal and immeasurable value. Therefore, allowing those with fewer means suffer or even die while those with wealth access the treatments they need to live is an affront to the Catholic view of the human person.

Throughout the Build Anew Series, we’ve explored how the Catholic tradition is clear that resources are to be shared and used to meet needs — especially the needs of our most vulnerable neighbors. Funds raised to pay for health care through our tax system should help promote public health by expanding health care access. Moreover, the price of health care should not rest on those who have the least — those who are able to pay more, must contribute more.

To love our neighbors means to care for their bodies — ensuring that we all have food, water, clothing, safe shelter, and good health care. Health care services provided through insurance must be comprehensive, and include preventative, primary, acute, mental health and long-term care services. Compassionate and affordable health care that meets needs and tends to the whole person serves to nurture the dignity of everyone in our communities.

Take Action: Why Medicaid Should be Expanding, Not “Unwinding”

Medicaid is our country’s main system of health care coverage for low-income individuals, children, and families, as well as older and disabled adults. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), families and individuals earning less than a certain percentage of the federal poverty level are eligible for Medicaid. Today, there are still state governments refusing to opt-in to this expanded coverage for people on the brink of poverty. Lawmakers in those states who deny access to health care for families and individuals struggling in poverty are responsible for keeping their states’ residents from life-saving care.

As a new report from UNIDOS explains, many COVID-19-related Medicaid protections expired on April 1, 2023, allowing states to redetermine eligibility and begin terminating families’ Medicaid. In many states, this has enabled a devastating process of Medicaid “unwinding,” with unprecedented numbers of people losing coverage. The most frustrating part is that most people losing Medicaid are still eligible. They have only lost coverage because of simply missing paperwork or other red tape barriers. This unwinding is particularly affecting Black and Brown communities, as it is estimated that over half of the people losing Medicaid are people of color.

If this unwinding continues, we will be facing an ever-growing and unconscionable health care disaster. Medicaid must be available to all who are eligible, without work requirements or other burdensome restrictions. Investing in our health is critical and benefits all of us. Our elected officials should expand this vital health care program immediately, so that all of us can access the health care we need and deserve.

TAKE ACTION: learn more by reading the full report here: Six Months into Unwinding: History’s Deepest Medicaid Losses Demand State Action.

Join us again next week for part eight of the Build Anew Series on housing. And don’t forget to stay tuned on Instagram (@network_lobby) and Facebook for our Build Anew video series!

Public Comment on Minimum Standards for Nursing Home Staffing

 

NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice Public Comment on HHS’s Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Proposed Rule Regarding Minimum Standards for Nursing Home Staffing

October 26, 2023

NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice believes that all people have inherent dignity and the right to basic life essentials. Guided by the essential principles of Catholic social justice, NETWORK is committed to advancing federal policy that protects our nation’s most vulnerable communities. We submit strong support for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ proposed rule regarding Minimum Standards for Nursing Home Staffing.

In voicing our support for strong minimum staffing standards for U.S. nursing facilities, we honor that commitment in two fundamental ways. First, nursing home residents are plainly among the most vulnerable of all populations in the U.S. Those who require nursing home services are inherently unable to care for themselves; they are elderly, disabled, seriously ill, or on a difficult path to rehabilitation—and all need 24-hour residential care.

Moreover, our nation must do better for the low-wage workers who provide the basic services that we all depend on for both our well-being and a strong economy, and who overwhelmingly bear the burdens of caring for nursing home residents. No one can deny that they deserve standards that enable them to shoulder those responsibilities under reasonable and humane working conditions.

The nursing home industry receives nearly $100 billion each year in taxpayer-funded Medicare and Medicaid payments. And yet, all too many nursing home residents live in poor and even unsanitary conditions, unable to have some of their most basic needs met by overworked, struggling staff. As numerous studies have shown, the root of these neglectful conditions is widespread understaffing. Strong correlations exist between nursing home staff levels and quality of care, rates of death from COVID-19, findings of abuse and neglect, and failed health inspections.

The lack of strong, science-based standards does not just leave nursing home residents more vulnerable to poor conditions and worse health outcomes. It also threatens the safety and wellbeing of nursing facility workers, creating a harmful cycle of understaffing. The damaging mix of worker injuries and exhaustion, low wages, and resulting burnout from unacceptable workload demands creates and exacerbates chronic understaffing in facilities with deficient staffing levels.

For these reasons, NETWORK strongly supports the rule recently proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to set minimum nursing home staffing levels. The rule’s requirement of a constant Registered Nurse on-site presence, and its minimum requirements for nursing and other care staff based on the actual needs of the facility’s residents, sets a necessary, basic federal staffing floor.

Our shared commitment to human dignity and respect for vulnerable nursing home residents and workers demands nothing less. Thus, NETWORK urges the adoption of CMS’s proposed rule on minimum standards for nursing home staffing. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this important initiative.

Louisville, KY Rally for a Better Federal Government

Get Beyond ‘Bandage’ Work in the Federal Budget

David J. Dutschke,
Guest Contributor from the Kentucky NETWORK Advocates Team
October 13, 2023
Oct 2, 2023, Louisville Rally Speakers Speak Out for a Better Federal Budget at the Ali Plaza in Louisville, KY

Louisville, KY advocates spoke out for a better federal budget at the Ali Center Plaza

We often talk about a “living wage.” Now it’s time to talk about a “living budget.” A

On Monday, October 2, 2023, a group of about 15 persons of faith and action gathered under the NETWORK umbrella at the Mohammed Ali Center Plaza in Louisville, Kentucky to challenge our elected officials to pass a budget that includes those on the margins struggling to afford housing, meals, health care, and more.

David Dutschke was the Oct. 2 Louisville Rally emceeSpeakers at our gathering included George Eklund, Director of Education and Advocacy, Coalition for the Homeless; Mary Danhauer, a retired nurse practitioner from Owensboro working in low-income clinics; the Honorable Attica Scott, former state Representative and Director of Special Projects at the Forward Justice Action Network; and the Rev. Dr. Angela Johnson, pastor of Grace Hope Presbyterian Church. They all spoke from different perspectives, but highlighted the fundamental role that you, me, and our government must take to provide for people in the margins. All of the speakers shared stories of the “bandage” work, or what I’d call charity or direct service work, that they do–myself included at St. Vincent DePaul. But all of us also emphasized the need for work to transform structures. The systemic change work that I do is with NETWORK and Clout (Citizens of Louisville Organized and United Together). And to start that systemic change work, Sr. Emily TeKolste, SP, an organizer with NETWORK, and leader of the Kentucky Team, provided very specific actionable items.

So here are some of my takeaways from our gathering: first, the largest provider of assistance to those on the margins is the U.S. people, at the direction of the federal government, in the form of rent assistance, housing programs like Section 8, SNAP, and Medicare assistance. We have to support these programs and ensure that Congress bolsters them, not slashes them.

George Eckland, Coalition for the Homeless and Rev. Angela Johnson, Grace Hope Presbyterian Church

George Eckland, Coalition for the Homeless and Rev. Angela Johnson, Grace Hope Presbyterian Church

Second, we don’t have a living wage mandate. In Louisville, a family of 3 needs at least $66,893 per year of income. Translated to wages, they need one job that pays at least $32.16 per hour. We can talk about food pantries, shelters, assisted living spaces, assisting our neighbors with paying rent and utilities, but eventually one comes down to the question: how many jobs do you have to have to raise a family today? Third, we have to reject the myth of scarcity.
There are 5,671,005 Americans with a net worth of over $3 million. There is $381 billion in unpaid taxes. And there are 37.9 million persons in the U.S. who live in poverty.
Finally, we need to do both charity work and system change work. All together, we the people of the U.S., have the resources to pay our bills and to shrink the margins. Our federal budget is a moral document to help us move forward. Solutions require the change of the system. And to do that, we have to organize. In organizing work, we say that there are only 2 sources of power—organized money and organized people. We have the people.

David Dutschke, a member of the Kentucky NETWORK Advocates Team, is former director of Parish Social Ministry and Housing Development at Catholic Charities of Louisville.

Watch Video from Louisville, KY Rally for a Better Federal Government

We must act, always with others, to make the Good News of our communal action THE news. We are all challenged to make our policies, including our budget, a beacon of moving forward on this great shared cosmic journey on which the Cosmic God leads us. Peace be with you all.
                                                               ~David Dutschke

Just Politics Catholic Podcast Season 2

Season 2 of Just Politics Podcast is Complete – Listen Now!

Season 2 of Just Politics Podcast is Complete – Listen Now!

August 24, 2023

After a successful inaugural season of the Just Politics podcast, produced in collaboration with U.S. Catholic magazine, we came back for an exciting second season!  

Our hosts Sister Eilis McCulloh, H.M., Colin Martinez Longmore, and Joan F. Neal spoke with more advocates, Catholic Sisters, scholars, faith leaders, and even a Vatican official about how we can transform our politics for the common good.  

In season 2, which wrapped up in May, our hosts covered topics ranging from Pope Francis and integral ecology to the urgent, Spirit-filled call for economic justice, health care access, and women’s leadership.  

You can find the podcast on the U.S. Catholic website, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don’t forget to subscribe, and join the conversation about #JustPoliticsPod on social media!  

Also check out Just Politics press at www.uscatholic.org/justpolitics where you can also sign up for email updates, learn more about each episode, and find additional reading on each episode’s topics. 

COMING SOON: Season 3 of Just Politics podcast drops Monday, Sept. 11!  

Youngstown, OH Justice-Seekers Supported Safety Net Programs at the Care Not Cuts Rally

Sister Eilis McCulloh, HM
Grassroots Outreach and Organizing Specialist
June 27, 2023

NETWORK organizer Sr. Eilis McColluh, HM, speaks to the media about the Youngstown, OH Care Not Cuts RallyAs Congress was in the final days of negotiations around the debt ceiling and trying to avoid a default, more than 40 faith-filled justice seekers gathered in Youngstown, Ohio at St. Patrick’s Church on the city’s southside.

Because I grew up in Youngstown, I have a soft spot for the city that is still trying to claw its way out of the devastating effects of the steel mill closures in the 1970s. I often talk about the grit and determination the city and its people have to build itself anew.  Folks have come together – in  faith-based and secular organizations, local government, and churches–to make sure everyone has access to human needs resources.  Fresh food is provided through a mobile pantry and housing resources, food assistance, medical assistance, and so much more are being delivered, too. But, from the rally’s speakers, we learned that they cannot do that alone.

Tom Hetrick, President of City Council, told us that more than one-third of all residents rely on SNAP to feed their families. However, the city is considered to be a food desert, so most people do not have access to fresh food within their neighborhoods. What good is SNAP when locations to access the benefit are lacking? Additionally, many residents rely on Medicaid and housing subsidies. Youngstown would be decimated if these vital social safety net programs were cut. Local non-profits are stepping up to fill the gaps, but they cannot do this forever.

“No matter how many organizations will come to the rescue, we need our federal government and Congress to stand up, as we strive to give you the benefit of the doubt…Because each and every one of us needs food, clothing, and shelter. And we ask that you would consider and not make these severe cuts to humanity, to our communities. As we gather together as organizations, we are striving to do our part, but we cannot do it without our Congress and federal government stepping up and doing the right thing by the people. “   ~ Rev. Carla Robinson

Watch Video from the Youngstow, OH Care Not Cuts Rally

NETWORK thanks the community advocates who spoke out to protect the social safety net at the Youngstown, OH Care Not Cuts Rally.

Tom Hetrick
Youngstown City Council

Michael F. Stepp
St. Vincent de Paul

Fred Berry
Humility of Mary Housing, Inc

Elder Rose Carter
ACTION

Minister Joseph Boyd
UU of Youngstown

Rev. Carla Robinson

Dr. Alexis Smith

At the Care Not Cuts Rally in Erie, PA, Justice-Seekers Called for a Moral Budget

At the Care Not Cuts Rally in Erie, PA, Justice-Seekers Called for a Moral Budget

Mary Nelson,
Guest Contributor from the Erie NETWORK Advocates Team
June 8, 2023
NETWORK organizer Sr. Eilis McColluh, HM, and Mary Nelson, justice-seekers in Erie PA speak to the media about the Care Not Cuts Rally in Erie, PA

May 23, 2023: NETWORK organizer, Sr. Eilis McCulloh, HM, left, and Mary Nelson, in the blue sweater, speak to the media about the Care Not Cuts Rally in Erie, PA

On May 23, 2023, I gathered with a group of community and religious leaders in Erie, Pennsylvania for a “Care Not Cuts” rally. Speakers and attendees were advocating for a moral federal budget as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden negotiated a bill that would raise the debt ceiling in exchange for significant cuts to critical human needs programs in our community. Over 60 people from the Erie community joined together to protect Medicaid, housing, and food assistance in our community.

 

Erie, PA NETWORK Advocates Team members Cynthia Legin-Bucell (far left), Mary Nelson (fourth from right), and Michael Bucell (second from right)

Erie, PA NETWORK Advocates Team members Cynthia Legin-Bucell (far left), Sister Eilis McCulloh, HM (second from left), Mary Nelson (fourth from right), and Michael Bucell (second from right)

Our Erie Advocates Team of NETWORK supporters had been following the federal budget negotiations with concern, hearing proposals of drastic cuts to the social safety net that aids Erie’s vulnerable populations. Attempts by the House of Representatives to balance the budget on the backs of people living in poverty, while not raising taxes for the ultra wealthy and corporations, seemed a painful and immoral way to address the country’s debt.

Erie is fortunate to have three orders of religious women (Sisters) who have served the community and northwest PA for decades: the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, the Sisters of St. Joseph (SSJ), and the Sisters of Mercy. They serve the people of God in Erie and the surrounding counties in a myriad of ministries and remind us of what it means to be in relationship with God and with each other. They lead by example to inspire and educate. They show up in all kinds of weather to protest, protect and advocate, and to call out the best in us. The Sisters demonstrate what a thriving community can become, if only we can be brave enough to work together and to care.

Sisters of St. Joseph and friends, pose with Erie, PA Mayor Joe Schember at the Care Not Cuts Rally in Erie, PA

May 23, 2023: Women Religious from the SSJ community and friends pose with Erie, PA Mayor Joe Schember at the Care Not Cuts Rally in Erie, PA

And so, on that sunny, warm spring day, most of the people who responded to NETWORK’s call to attend the “Care Not Cuts” rally in Erie were Sisters and allies from the Erie area. One of the speakers was Sr. Dorothy Stoner, OSB, who works with refugees and people seeking job training at the St. Benedict Education Center. Sr. Dorothy shared about the extensive services the Benedictines offer, from food pantries and soup kitchens to environmental education and safe-space programs for children. She called out the irony of certain members of Congress seeking to cut funding for the very support of food, housing, and Medicaid, while insisting people work in such low-wage jobs that they are unable to afford food, housing, and healthcare!

Another speaker, Susannah Faulkner, who works for the SSJ Neighborhood Network and serves on the Erie City Council, noted that “The city of Erie’s child poverty rate is three times higher

Susannah Faulkner of the SSJ Neighborhood Network & Erie City Council speaks at the Erie, PA Care Not Cuts Rally

Susannah Faulkner of the SSJ Neighborhood Network and Erie City Council speaks about poverty and policy choices at the Care Not Cuts rally in Erie, PA

than the state and national average…[they are] trapped in this situation depriving them of opportunity, good health, and stability.” If we believe that poverty is a policy choice, we should be able to mold a federal budget that is also a moral budget.

Betsy Wiest described how St Patrick’s Haven, another ministry of Sisters of St Joseph that provides temporary overnight shelter and a ministry of friendship for unhoused men, was supported by the community after a fire last year. The proposed 2023 budget would strip a significant portion of their federal HUD funding, which provides emergency shelter for men with nowhere else to go, critical during Erie’s frigid winters. She asked, “How is this practicing love of neighbor without distinction?”

Jennie Haggerty spoke to how the Mercy Anchor Center for Women was recently expanded at a repurposed Catholic elementary school. This transitional home for women and children also includes extensive support services for the community. Since 2017, none of their clients have become homeless again, which should be an indicator of its success in reducing homelessness and improving the dignity and employability of its clients.

Mayor Joseph Schember demonstrated his Catholic heart by sharing what the city is doing to address economic and racial inequities. He noted that evidence has shown that by providing housing and support services to people with addiction first — instead of requiring them to meet certain requirements before receiving assistance — gives people a better opportunity to turn their lives around and reduce chronic homelessness. New initiatives seek to revitalize long-neglected areas that will require federal investment but will recoup significant financial payback. There are local, state, and federal investment programs, neighborhood coalitions, and downtown partnerships which are primed to move us forward to prosperity and equality, if they are funded.

Gary Horton, of the Minority Community Investment Coalition, exhorted everyone to get involved politically, and like Congressman John Lewis said, to make good trouble. He said, “Democracy is on the line, and we must vote like our lives depend on it.”  We must speak up for people who have been disproportionately impacted by bad policies that have created generational poverty, which is so evident in the divided and high poverty areas in Erie and the surrounding counties.

Their passionate pleas to protect federal funding for these programs that help vulnerable people in our communities  is a call to the rest of us to contact our legislators, to advocate for those whom some policy makers in Washington have ignored for far too long.

People gathered in Erie, PA to listen to local leaders talk about love and care for all in the community at the Care Not Cuts Rally.

Together, by speaking out in support of federal safety net programs, and the local organizations that tend to our struggling neighbors, we can build thriving communities. “Care, not cuts,” indeed.

Watch Video from the Care Not Cuts Rally in Erie, PA