NPW Responds to NYS Budget Agreement 

The 2.84 percent Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA), with only 1.7% allocated directly for eligible workers' salaries, falls short of the 3.2% COLA advocated for by the nonprofit sector. A 3.2% COLA would have not fully, but more significantly, addressed the needs of the workforce, the majority of whom are women and people of color. Read an overview of the FY2025 NYS Budget. 

Sign-On for Fair Wages and Fair Contracting with New York State

Join Nonprofit Westchester us as we advocate for a fair contracting process and take steps that work toward ensuring that nonprofit human services workers can live with the dignity and financial security they deserve. Learn more and support our SIGN-ON Letter below. 

The CDPAP is still under attack in NYS Budget! 

The Governor has made it clear her intention to cut $1.2 billion from the consumer-directed program earlier this year and she is still determined to do so. CDPAP allows People with Disabilities to hire their own home care worker and not rely solely on a home care agency. Please call the Governor, encourage family and friends to do so, and tell her these cuts jeopardize the lives of seniors and people with disabilities. 

Advocate for 3.2% COLA for Expenses Including Other than Salaries

The current language in the Assembly and Senate One House Budgets only provides a 3.2% COLA for salaries for Direct Service Staff, Non-Executive Clinical Staff, and Direct Care Staff and there is no increase for the cost of health benefits, rents, salaries for supervisors, administrative assistants/secretaries, account clerks, and other staff not specifically named. The Governor's proposed budget language allowed for a 1.5% increase on total state aid. Please call and email your state legislators and chiefs of staff in the next few days to let them know that the 3.2% COLA is needed on the entire amount of current state aid. 

Support Tenants, Immigrants, and Excluded Workers to be included in the NYS Budget!

Take action to ensure Statewide Right to Counsel, Access to Representation, and the Unemployment Bridge Program are included in the NY Senate and Assembly’s One House Budgets. Please contact your local state assembly member and state senator to express your support for these critical initiatives. 

Take action to end child poverty in Westchester and beyond

WCA released its 2024 report on Child Poverty, “Uplifting Courageous Voices: From the Frontline of Poverty in Westchester County" on March 7, 2024. This report is the result of months of documenting parent experiences and identifying program and policy supports to alleviate the impact of poverty. Contact your New York State elected officials now to raise our voice for child poverty.

Take Action Today to Increase Child Care Educators' Pay

Right now the NYS child care workforce makes less than 96% of all NYS occupations. As a result, many child care jobs go unfilled, leading to programs unable to enroll new children. Caring for and educating our young children is not babysitting. It is demanding work, calling for skill and knowledge and patience. The people who do this important work, generally women and often women of color, should be compensated like the professionals that they are. In less than 1 minute you can let Governor Hochul and your NYS legislators know that it's time to pay our child care workforce like the invaluable professionals they are.

Sign Up for Youth Lobby Day!

Join Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic on April 9th for Youth Lobby Day 2024 ! If you're between the ages of 14-22 and passionate about improving access to reproductive healthcare and abortion rights, this event is for you. They will provide transportation to Albany to meet with our New York State elected officials. 

Call to Action to Help the National Network to End Domestic Violence

Deposits into the Crime Victims Fund (CVF) remain lower than anticipated, and the $1.2 billion proposed by the House, the Senate, and in the President’s Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) budget for the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) is a devastating $700 million cut. At this proposed funding level, thousands of victim service providers across the nation will be forced to lay off staff, cut programs, or—even worse—shut their doors. Join us in urging your Members of Congress to act now and share with them what potential cuts to VOCA will mean for programs and survivors in your state!

This is a national advocacy campaign, and any resident in the country can sign on to the letter – follow the link below, enter your name and address, and your elected representatives pop up.

Contact Senator Schumer in Support of Funding Change that will Benefit Housing in Westchester

Westchester residents and agencies like FSSY  and Westchester Children's Association need your help! 900+ homeless Westchester households now housed with Continuum of Care's Permanent Supportive Housing and Rapid Rehousing Subsidies, as well as Westchester landlords and providers of homeless services deserve the same funding and consideration by HUD as all the other surrounding counties

Tell Congress Women Deserve Equal for Equal Work!

Fair wages are essential to women’s economic security. When women are paid less, they have less money for basic family necessities like rent, groceries, health care, transportation, and child care. Closing the wage gap is integral to improving the health and well-being of women and families. The Paycheck Fairness Act (S.728 / H.R.17) would strengthen the Equal Pay Act of 1963 by providing robust protections against gender-based pay discrimination, particularly for women facing additional systemic barriers to achieving economic security. 

2024 NY State Budget Overview; Top Highlights & Key Proposals

On January 16, 2024, Governor Kathy Hochul announced her proposed Fiscal Year 2025 (FY ’25) Executive Budget to the New York State Legislature. The address set the stage for budget discussions with state legislative leaders Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins as they embark on a critical financial process, reflecting a complex mix of continuity, adaptation, and response to evolving needs amidst challenging times. Read the budget overview, top highlights and key proposals of the proposed $233 billion budget below. 

Voice Your Support for An All-Affordable Sustainable Housing Development in the Village of Mamaroneck

A proposal was submitted to the Village Board by Westhab and Washingtonville Housing Alliance (“WHA”) for Hunter Terrace: a 6-story, all-affordable housing development. Hunter Terrace will be comprised of 77 units of high-quality, permanently affordable housing, a 2,370 sq. ft. Community Hub, and a total of 122 parking spaces for residential and community use. A public hearing on the RFP and responses (including Hudson Terrace) will take place on Monday, January 29 at 8PM. If you live or work in Mamaroneck and support efforts to build more affordable housing through infill -- repurposing of old buildings -- please attend! Full details on the proposal can be found HERE.

Invest in New Yorkers with Disabilities

For decades, New York State has neglected to invest in people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Without investment, 1 in 3 Direct Support Professionals will leave the field, 20,000 unfilled positions will remain or escalate and 38% of non-profit providers will reduce or close programs. We are in crisis! Systemic underfunding has caused a critical staffing crisis and eroded supports for people with disabilities. We must act now to urge the Governor and our legislators to invest in NYr's with Disabilities in the FY2025 Budget.

Pledge Your Support for Sex Education for All New York Young People

Currently, New York State does not require sex education other than HIV/AIDS prevention. Unfortunately, this scant requirement is sometimes not taught adequately in New York State schools. Even worse, some classrooms teach medically inaccurate and stigmatizing information that does more harm than good. However, we know K-12 sex education that follows national standards can significantly improve health outcomes. It helps kids make healthy decisions and teaches them how to use resources that keep them safe. Sex education is needed to keep kids safe and healthy.

Urge Your NYS Assembly Member to Pass A.361 - the Reproductive Freedom and Equity Grant Program

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, New York's existing protections for abortion won't be enough to ensure access. Now is the time for New York to be bold. Our state needs to take leadership in the fight for abortion justice by advancing key policies to expand access for all, including passing the Reproductive Freedom and Equity Grant Program (A.361/S.348).

Tell NYS Legislators to Pass Sex Education for All Young People

Sex education is a critical resource that provides young people with the information they need to make healthy decisions that can affect their entire lives.

Importantly, sex education:

- provides needed information young people deserve on important topics such as consent and boundaries, self-esteem, anti-bullying, healthy and unhealthy relationships, puberty, online safety, and detecting misinformation;
- supports parents in keeping their kids safe and facilitates easier communication around sometimes difficult topics;
- empowers young women and LGBTQ people with valuable information they need to combat constant attacks on their bodies and freedoms.

Tell your representatives in the New York State Senate and New York State Assembly you want them to support sex education to ensure young people and their parents have access to this important resource. 

New York's Schools Need Youth Justice! Pass Solutions not Suspensions NOW

Solutions Not Suspensions (A5691/S1040) -- would establish that suspensions are the last resort to student misbehavior in schools, never the first. Instead, it promotes methods that are designed to hold students accountable while helping them learn from their mistakes. In New York, students lose hundreds of thousands of days in the classroom each year because of suspensions, often for normal youthful behavior. These punishments disproportionately impact Black and Latinx students, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ youth. Importantly, this bill would allow New York to take a big step away from the biased policies of the past. More information. 

New Funding Paradigm Need for NFP Public Emergency Informational/Non-"Safety Net" Functionings

Our organization is finding repeatedly that emergency public sector and private allocations in recent years that define their target grantees as primarily being "safety net services" do not necessarily take into account evolving realities that in times like the pandemic, information and health and community education programs and referral services can be just as valuable and life-saving for vulnerable community members as more traditional "safety net services" like nutrition and shelter programs are typically thought of, but those former kinds of efforts are rarely included in emergency funding programs. This would not be the case for government programs where the public information function is always, always, always a part of funded emergency programming, - so why is it the case in the non-profit grantor world? 

Take the Environmental Bond Act Survey Today to Support Equitable and Sustainable Land Acquisition

Urge NYS legislators to use their financial capital to pass the Environmental Bond Act, to acquire and protect Westchester County open space! By taking the EBA survey you can help to preserve land and clean water that is important to you and important to the environment. You may take the survey as many times as you wish, electing to support projects all over the County, like Save Pocantico Lake. Take action today to protect open space and clean water! 

Moms Need Momnibus Now!

The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any high-income country and significant disparities in outcomes – and the crisis is only worsening. The maternal mortality rate in 2021 was 89 percent higher than the rate in 2018. The Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act will address this crisis through historic investments that comprehensively address every driver of maternal mortality, morbidity, and disparities in the United States.

Call or email your legislator & express your support for this issue. Learn more and share this information with appropriate stakeholders. 

Urge President Biden and Congress to Pass a Permanent Legislative Solution for Dreamers

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) currently provides temporary relief from deportation (deferred action)and work authorization for eligible immigrant youth from deportation.

The Community Resource Center is deeply disheartened by the string of decisions that hold the DACA program unconstitutional. CRC emphasize that legislation is needed to ensure a real path to citizenship for Dreamers. DACA was always meant to be a temporary solution until Congress could pass meaningful and substantive legislation to address this issue and create a path to citizenship for Dreamers. The fact that Congress has utterly failed to address this issue while hundreds of thousands of young immigrants’ livelihoods and families rely on DACA for survival in this country is the real travesty highlighted by Judge Hanen’s decision.

There are more than 500,000 DACA recipients in the US. Out of those, more than 23,000 reside in New York state. Dreamers have grown up and have lived in the US for most of their lives. They have attended and graduated high school and are currently in college pursuing a career or higher education. Dreamers help the US economy grow. Since DACA was launched in 2012, Dreamers have contributed $108 billion to the US economy and $33 billion in combined taxes, according to the FWD.us. Over the next 10 years, DACA recipients are projected to contribute an estimated $433.4 billion to the GDP, $60 billion in fiscal impact, and $12.3 billion in Social Security and Medicare taxes. Despite their low priority status, they continue to exemplify good citizenship in the United States.

Child  Care Council of Westchester: Child Care and Head Start Need Increases Not Cuts
House Labor HHS Appropriations Subcommittee - Action Required by: 8/31/23

Inability to find or pay for child care keeps parents out of the workforce, especially women. It's often the biggest bill in the household, yet the child care workforce is among the most poorly paid of any profession. Despite proof during the pandemic of the essential nature of child care access, cuts are proposed for Head Start/Early Head Start and at best, level-funding for child care. On average, the U.S. economy loses $122 billion annually due to lost wages because workers can't get the child care they need. For our children, our workforce, our economy and our future, increase funding for early childhood education programs. More Information.