Greetings from the Collaborative Center for Justice! With Election Day approaching, the fall is off to a busy start. Below you can find some news and updates from the Center, as well as public policy issues for you to act on. Most urgent is the upcoming referendum on early in-person voting in Connecticut. Our state has lagged behind the rest of the country on this issue long enough, and voters have the opportunity to change that this Election Day, Tuesday, November 8.
Click here to find your polling station. Click here to register to vote if you have not done so already. The deadline to register is Tuesday, November 1.
Parish Partnership Program
The Parish Partnership Program is a free opportunity to develop as a leader and to make a difference in our state. Collaborative Center staff will organize and train a cohort of laypeople from parishes throughout the Archdiocese to be effective advocates during the 2023 Connecticut legislative session and beyond!
The Parish Partnership Program is divided into two components: community formation and education as well as action. We will gather for relational meetings among participants, discuss and reflect on shared reading, and host guest speakers who work to advance justice. This shared learning will support our advocacy efforts during the state legislative session. For more information or to join, contact us at advocacy@ccfj.org or 860-692-3066.
We are able to pilot this program through a generous grant from the Mercy Fund for Ministry Program.
Please welcome Kimberly Chiamaka Okeke to the Collaborative Center!
We at the Collaborative Center for Justice are excited to welcome our first ever congregational organizer, Kimberly Okeke, to the team! “Congregational” here is meant in two senses: This new role is responsible for interfacing with the Connecticut-based members of the Center’s founding congregations and their other justice ministries. It is also responsible for building our base of laypeople from Catholic parishes in Greater Hartford. Our community organizing efforts of the last five years have been fruitful, and are an area we will develop further.
Kimberly comes to us with experience working with the Hartford-based anti-violence organization, COMPASS Youth Collaborative. She is a recent graduate of the University of Connecticut, where she took her BA in political science and African American studies, and her MA in public policy. Kimberly is local to the area, having grown up in East Hartford after her family immigrated from Nigeria. She is committed to our work in the community, in part, because this is her community.
If you would like to arrange a one-on-one meeting with Kimberly, please email her at kimberly@ccfj.org or call her at 860-692-3066.
For Your Attention & Advocacy
Early Voting on Your November 8 Ballot:
On November 8, there will be a ballot measure concerning the expansion of early voting. A majority “yes” vote would empower the state legislature to write laws to implement early voting in Connecticut as early as 2024. Please join the Collaborative Center in supporting the expansion of early voting in Connecticut and, therefore, the expansion of the franchise.
The benefits of early voting include fewer scheduling conflicts, reduced stress on the voting system, shorter lines on Election Day, increased voter satisfaction, and fewer administrative burdens. All in all, with the implementation of early voting methods this will lead to more efficiency on Election Day. These improvements benefit all voters, especially the elderly, disabled, parents, and low-wage workers with inflexible work schedules.
Fair Workweek Bill (CT Legislative Session):
Throughout Connecticut, hundreds of thousands of low-wage hourly workers struggle to make ends meet due to unpredictable shift scheduling practices. In a poll of Connecticut service sector workers, 50% of employees agreed that their current work schedules do not provide them sufficient flexibility to meet their family needs, while 71% reported that their weekly schedules caused extra stress for them and their families.
Fluctuating schedules also often mean fluctuating incomes each pay period making it difficult to account for basic needs, plan for emergencies, and possibly acquire shifts at other jobs for added income. The same poll found 37% of employees saw income changes from week to week, while 26% of employees also agreed that these changing schedules made it difficult for them to pay bills.
In the 2023 state legislative session, the Collaborative Center will join other advocates to once again attempt to pass a fair workweek bill that will promote greater stability to the lives of low-wage hourly workers. We seek a bill that will do at least the following:
- Apply to large employers (500+ workers), including franchises and big box retailers
- Require employers to provide a nonbinding but fact-based estimate of average weekly hours and days and times of shifts at the time of hire
- Require employers to provide 14-day advance notice of work schedules
- Gives employees the option to decline to work with less than an 11 hours rest between shifts as well as overtime pay for shifts worked less than 11 hours rest
Prison Liens (CT Legislative Session):
Formerly incarcerated people face many barriers to reintegration into society. Nationally, prospective employers, landlords, and educational institutions can legally discriminate against someone for having a criminal record. Barriers to reintegration encourage recidivism because they make it difficult for people to catch their footing in the legal economy.
Massive debt from the cost of incarceration is one such barrier to reentry. Nationally, an estimated 10 million people have approximately $50 billion worth of prison debt. In Connecticut, incarcerated people incur costs for basic human needs while under the state’s care for things such as sick calls, laboratory tests, and dental care.
If someone buys property or receives a large sum of money such as from a lawsuit or inheritance the state can place a lien on those assets to repay the nearly $91,000 per year cost of incarceration. With few exceptions, that debt and subsequent can even follow them into the grave.
In fiscal year 2018, the state collected less than $6.5 million from the practice, or 0.036% of the state’s $18 billion budget. These are funds that could otherwise help cover damages, lift formerly incarcerated people and families out of poverty, start a business, or pursue an education. During the 2023 legislative session, the Collaborative Center will join other advocates to pass a bill to have the practice repealed.
Food Insecurity (Federal Legislation):
In 2020, 13.8 million American households experienced uncertain or limited access to adequate food. Factors such as unemployment, poor support for the elderly and disabled, and jobs that do not pay a living wage promote food insecurity. The burden of this problem falls disproportionately on the shoulders of those who are poor and people of color. According to one USDA study, at 21.7%, Black households were found to be more than twice as likely to experience food insecurity than the national average of 10.5%, while 17.2% of Hispanic households experienced food insecurity.
Covid19 pandemic also helped to heighten issues of food insecurities in Black and Brown communities. According to research done by the Texas School of Physical Activity and Nutrition, they found that about 14.8% of U.S. households with children under the age of 18 experienced food insecurity in 2020 (38.3 million people) including 11.7 million children.
Despite the alarming rate of food insecurity, H.R. 8450 helps to defeat and mend the effects of childhood food insecurity. The development of H.R. 8450 came to be through the Child Nutrition and Reauthorization Act. This is an act that provides a reauthorization process every five years to permanent and current nutrition programs for children in the U.S. The CNR helps to update and shape policies in order to help fix issues of food insecurity in real time.
H.R. 8450 helps fix issues of childhood food insecurity by expanding the Community Eligibility requirements, increasing reimbursement for public school lunches, updating the Special supplemental Nutrition Program for WIC, addressing food insecurity in the summer and lowering Summer Food Service Programs eligibility.
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